5: Kaori Shimomura
She twisted her way through the throng of oblivious people, surveying the area one small section at a time, so as not to be battered down by any waves of corrupted mana. She dodged jealous claws and lustful snares as her white form shifted left and right past the young adults in their dark dress, until her instincts brought her to the front of the crowd. Behind the stage and its thumping speakers, the wall was adorned with a mural filled with surreal messages and staccato imagery. Trying as hard as she could to block out the rest of the club, Phantasia tried to sense the energies contained within it: hundreds of people had laid their mark on this wall, infusing it will a small piece of their spirit. That energy, however, was dark and filled with angst befitting the subject matter – across the wall, from end to end, was an image of a ruined world. Humans were shown killing their peers, buildings had been ripped apart by weapons of unnatural power, and nature’s beauty was consumed by the fires of war. It was a depiction of legends passed down. Legends of despair and desolation. These people, thrashing around underground, were anchored to that point in history when their ancestors’ world collapsed.
Most striking of all, though, was the image that crowed the mural. A shadow. Twelve pitch black wings extending across the length of the wall like long fingers, reaching out to clasp the ruined world. Erebus. The shadow that lingered in the world’s subconscious, whose mythic existence defined history, once again made its mark.
Feeling uneasy, Phantasia moved away, back towards the crowd. The image had broken down her barriers, and she could feel its centuries-old decay seeping out of the walls and surrounding her. She found herself stumbling into people, as if in a trance, the despair deep in the hearts of so many eating away her own. The darkness was calling to her, willing her to embrace it. Her vision started to blur and distort, as her senses began to twist beyond her control. She could see the flow of negative energies twirling around; the emotions of the humans tainting the flow of mana they didn’t even know existed. All those thoughts and feelings, powerful forces humans didn’t even understand, yet faeries feared the most. The power that corrupted them. The power Cecaelia and Ophion had embraced.
Phantasia found her senses flung open to the darkness around her. She couldn’t control it. All she could do was let herself go. As it called out to her, she began to crave it, and the world began to fade.
~ The darkness consumes Phantasia?! ~
~ Next: What lies beneath the club? ~
