Page 13 of Bright Blinding Ruin

Moments pass, or maybe an eternity passes. Time doesn’t matter in a liminal place like this, a place with no end and no beginning. No limits, no boundaries, both to infinity and to nothing. I don’t know where I am.

A deep, monstrous voice far too low to belong to a human speaks, “And here you are.” It’s low enough to make me shiver, low enough to crawl into my head and wrap itself around my brain. “It seems a part of us remains connected.”

Though that voice is so unnatural, so deep and unnerving, I can’t help but feel drawn to it. My mind is a hazy mess, but it feels as though I know that voice. I know it so much more than anyone else could.

The voice goes on, “It matters not. Rest, plan… all you can truly do is wait for me to finish what I began twenty years ago.”

I open my mouth—or at least I think I do. I want to ask the voice why. Why we’re here, why he must finish what he started, why, why, why. So many questions, but a part of me knows I’ll never get the answers.

“You and the rest of Laconia will see the splendor that is unbridled chaos, the destruction that is only a harbinger of your death. Death is my only purpose. You… Rey, are irrelevant. Stand against me or surrender, it does not matter. Before I come for them, I will come for you.”

“That’s an awful lot of talking for something who thinks I’m irrelevant,” I say. I want to shout it to the black sky above me,but it’s impossible to tell which way is up and which way is down. Everything here is the same. Eternal, never-ending blackness. “Sounds like you’re trying to intimidate me into backing down and giving up.”

It takes a long time, but finally it comes to me: who I’m talking to. Who I’m standing up against: Invictis. And this field of blackness is nothing but a dream I’ll hardly remember when I wake up.

The nonhuman voice chuckles, a jarring sound, like I amuse him. “Whether you fight or kneel, it does not matter. I will come for you regardless of what you do. If I were you, I would spend my remaining time with friends and loved ones—but wait, you don’t have any of those, do you?”

An ancient weapon mocking me? I won’t have it.

“I have Frederick. I’m sure he’d be glad to keep me company until you show your golden ass again,” I rattle off.

I swear, I hear him seethe, but maybe that’s just me. Frederick is a sore spot even now. “Ah, yes. Frederick. So earnest. So desperate. Perhaps I should kill him before I kill you, just so you can watch him die. Perhaps I should kill all of Laconia so you can watch them all die, like that little girl of yours.”

Prim. He’s talking about Prim.

“Perhaps I will leave you alone in Laconia, watch in the shadows while you wither away and wait until you fall to your knees and beg for your death.” I can practically hear Invictis growling with approval at the thought. “Tell me, Rey, how long do you think you’ll last on your own?”

“Fuck you.” I have a whole lot more to say to him, but before I have the chance, I wake up.

My eyelids fly open, and I stare at the stone ceiling above me. I yawn, still groggy, and I decide I want to catch some more z’s, so I roll to my side and try to get comfy again. And I probably would’ve gotten comfy too, if someone wouldn’t havebeen standing there, watching me with a curious expression on his face.

“Frederick?” I mutter. “What is it?” As I blink, my vision clears, and I see it’s not Frederick who stands near the bed I’m in.

It’s his dad.

Clean and shaved, his hair cut and his unruly beard now a neatly-kept goatee, the family resemblance is uncanny. Sure, Fred is still way too skinny, his cheeks too gaunt, but put a few years on Frederick, and he’ll look exactly like his dad.

Not bad, actually, for a man in his upper forties or early fifties.

“Not my son,” Fred quickly says, his brows furrowed as he studies me. “My son is outside, waiting. He said you’d still be asleep—he was right.” His brown gaze narrows. “You were sleeping, but you were dreaming, weren’t you? Dreaming of it.”

At the mention of Invictis, my heart constricts in my chest. I’m slow to sit up and swing my legs off the side of the bed. “Um… yeah.” For a moment, I hesitate, not knowing if I should tell him, but at this point, everything is pretty much hopeless, so why not?

“Yes,” Fred says with a nod. “Based on bodily reactions to the dream, had to be either Invictis or…” He coughs and averts his eyes. “…something not so appropriate.” I’m seconds from asking him what that’s supposed to mean when he gestures for me to get up. “Come, come. We have a lot to do today, and if you’re with us we can simplify the process.”

I slip my feet into my shoes—shoes that are looking worse for wear now, but they’re still kicking. I get up and follow Fred through the makeshift hospital, and we come upon Frederick standing outside in the morning sun, his face angled up to the sky as he soaks it in.

“You were right,” Fred says as he pushes past his son. “She was sleeping.” He says not a word more as he walks with a quick pace, and Frederick and I exchange a quick glance before we trot after him.

“Here,” Frederick says as he tosses me something he was holding onto. “Thought you’d be hungry.”

I catch it. An apple, shiny and red. Not my favorite breakfast by a longshot, but here, I’ll take what I can get. I eat it as Frederick and I follow his dad. “Where are we going, exactly? He said we have a lot to do?”

I told Fred everything last night. Everything. How I got here, how I was tricked, how I’m basically responsible for all the lives left in Laconia because I unleashed the supernatural entity that was sent to destroy them.

Still don’t understand why, but whatever. I’m working with the information I have.

“My father,” Frederick is slow to say as he stares at the back of his dad’s head, “has a plan, apparently.”

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