George picks himself off the floor and shuffles away from the frozen spikes piercing the cockpit. He sits back against the cold metal wall and crosses eyes with Esmerelda who is lying awkwardly opposite him. She lets out a feeble groan and his wide eyes dart to the shrapnel lodged in her stomach.
“H-help!” he gasps. “Someone help!”
Ed stumbles over his broken chair to investigate. The kid looks ashen as he points to Esmerelda.
“Oh no.” Ed looks to Bengeo who, for the first time since they met, is noticeably shaken. He didn’t think things would go to hell this fast. Boy, was he sorely mistaken.
The bandit carefully steps over the debris and kneels beside her.
“How am I looking, Ben?” Her wrinkled face grimaces as she copes with the pain.
“Better than I feel.” He smiles, but the light in her eyes is fading.
Bengeo shares a foreboding look with Regis who shakes his head. One glance at Esmerelda’s wound is all it takes to assess the fatality of the situation.
“Are the others alright?” Ed asks.
“The old man was behind us,” Regis replies, “but I didn’t see anyone else.”
“What about Lauren?” George croaks.
Regis shakes his head. “Didn’t see her, the sisters, Ozrune or the troll either.”
“Shit.” Ed runs his hand through his hair and exhales his stress.
To add to it, the nose of the cockpit breaks apart with a thunderous creak and plummets into the snow.
*
Lauren’s eyes flutter open to morning light, and the tang of blood lingers in her mouth as she lies in the snow amongst scattered debris. She wiggles her toes and sighs with relief that she can still move her legs. Her warm breath materialises as she sits up slowly and gets her bearings – nothing but snow, ice and Jessica’s toothy grin.
“She’s awake!”
“About time,” Avarice grunts from atop a giant propeller blade that was torn off in the crash.
“Did we make it?” Lauren asks in a raspy voice.
Jessica nods. “Barely.”
Avarice leaps off the propeller and frowns at Lauren. “Can you walk?”
She shifts her weight onto her legs and her calves tremble as she stands. “What happened? We were in the sky and then…” Recalling the storm she conjured, Lauren looks ashamed.
“Yes, a stupid and dangerous thing you did.” Avarice casts a stern eye at Jessica, who shrinks with guilt too. “Magic is not to be trifled with.”
“Magic…” Jessica looks worried, remembering that Ozrune was swept into the sky, “… Mr Bird Wizard, he got thrown off too, do you think he’s okay?”
“Perhaps. Wizards like him often have tricks up their sleeve…” the troll scowls.
Jessica looks relieved.
Avarice continues, “… but it is more likely he is dead.” And with that, whatever comfort Jessica briefly felt is banished.
“George?! Is he…?! Is he okay?” Lauren panics.
Jessica looks worried. “He’s probably fine, he’s with the others, they’ll watch out for him.”
Lauren looks terrified. She can’t lose him too. A low howl, haunting and desperate, fills her with despair. She looks warily about the empty white expanse. “What is that?”
The other two look at her like she’s crazy.
“You can’t hear anything?”
“Hear what?” Jessica asks, wondering if Lauren has a concussion or something.
“It’s sort of like whale song but it’s everywhere and nowhere…”
Avarice perks up. “I hear something too!” She looks to the north and sees Remy and Valentine waving at them from atop a slope.
“Heeeeey!” Remy’s voice carries across the frigid wastes as she races towards them.
“Hey!” At first Jessica looks relieved, then she notices Remy’s disposition and backs away as her sister comes straight at her with a face of wrath. “What’s your deal?”
“How could you be so stupid?!” Remy barks, shoving Jessica who staggers backwards. “So selfish?! So reckless?! What were you thinking? Huh?” She shoves again and again until Jessica snaps and pushes back. The sisters glare at one another for a moment, nostrils flared. Their harsh breath fogs the air between them.
“Uh, guys…” Lauren says meekly.
“You too! What if you didn’t make it? What would we tell George?” Remy snaps.
Lauren bows her head. “I… I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologise, you saved us,” says Jessica.
“You almost killed us! Ed and the others, they could be hurt, or worse,” Remy yells. “This is the problem with you, you never think about anyone but yourself!”
“No, that’s you!” Jessica barks.
“Enough!” Lauren cries as Valentine comes trudging over the ridge, panting heavily.
“Why’d you run off like that?” he wheezes, completely oblivious to the tension that could rival the icy field they’re standing in. He looks at the girls’ stern faces and asks, “What’s going on?”
“We can’t be at each other’s throats like this, we need to work together if we’re going to survive,” Lauren says.
Jessica and Remy exchange a bitter glance before both casting their eyes to the opposite horizons.
From the brow of the hill, Remy stares at the scattered airship parts trailing north towards the rugged mountains in the distance, where the sky darkens with a primeval rage.
“Of course this could only get worse.” She shivers as she speaks, knowing well that no good awaits them there, but of course with her rotten luck that would be where the others are, if they survived the crash. Perish the thought.
The five set off along the trail of debris while the sun crawls over the horizon. The bitter wind is a burden to all. Even Avarice shivers as the breeze carries the snow against her. Lauren straggles behind the others, and as they press on the distance between them grows. Jessica lingers back also, wanting to be as far from Remy as possible.
She glances at Lauren with her arms wrapped around herself and her head tucked far into her raincoat, which is fastened all the way up. She clearly isn’t coping with the unforgiving cold, and with her rail-thin figure who could blame her.
“You alright?” Jessica asks.
Lauren pokes her head up like a tortoise emerging from its shell, revealing her rosy freckled face. “So c-c-cold,” she stutters.
When she was barely a child, Lauren’s maternal grandmother had told her of how freckles were traditionally considered undesirable in China. This comment had rooted itself deep in her psyche despite her mother telling her “to hell with tradition”. In her adolescence she tried to cover them with makeup but wasn’t particularly adept at that sort of thing and couldn’t be bothered to learn, so eventually she accepted that perhaps it was her lot in life to be ‘undesirable’. Little does she know, the sight of those freckles on her reddening nose is anything but to Jessica.
“You don’t need to worry about me, I’m fine,” Lauren says, mistaking her lingering admiration for a look of pity.
Understanding of her desire not to be patronised, Jessica concocts a little white lie. “I know. I’m just sick of walking in silence. Those guys are boring.”
“Oh.” Lauren looks apologetic, and worries whether she sounded harsh a moment ago, but Jessica doesn’t seem bothered. “You really think George is okay?” she asks.
Jessica nods resolutely. “No doubt.”
Up ahead, Valentine sighs. “I can’t take this anymore, we’ll die from exposure if we stay out here.”
“Not me,” Avarice says, “trolls do not feel cold.”
“Then why do you look as miserable as the rest of us?” he replies.
“Misery is all we trolls know,” she says, stone-faced, and resolutely takes the lead beside Remy.
The snow flutters harder, faster, blanketing all in a white haze, while the wind drones in the distance as they slog across the plains and snake through the winding mountain pass which offers little respite from the blizzard. The pass ends at a clearing and the hollowed remains of some bygone village. Lauren stumbles over the remnants of a structure buried in the snow, which looks like the foundations of what was once a house.
“Look!” The others look back at her as she kneels down and dusts the ice off a wooden plaque. It reads ‘Hoarfrost Inn’. Her face takes on a wan expression.
“Hoarfrost…” Dread gnaws at Remy as she recalls the town from the original game. “We should move on.”
“Hold on,” Valentine says, “we need shelter before it gets any colder. If we get turned around in this we’re as good as dead.”
“He’s r-right, the sun’s already going d-d-down, we won’t find our w-way at night.” Lauren clenches her jaw to stop her teeth chattering.
“How can it be dark already?” Avarice asks.
“We’re probably far north,” Valentine replies. “In the winter Iceland only gets five hours of light.”
“Ice Land. A fitting name for this realm.”
The detective shakes his head at the troll and tucks his blue hands under his arms to warm them.
A glint in the sky catches Jessica’s eyes, and she shields them with her hand then squints. Am I seeing shit? she wonders, but the golden light glistens again. “What’s that?”
They watch as it floats towards them and Avarice warily draws her knives.
“A wisp!” she cries.
“A what?” Jessica asks.
“My father told me stories about ghosts that lure travellers to grim deaths.”
Jessica groans – why can’t there be nice things in this world?
By contrast Remy looks hopeful at the glowing apparition as it shapeshifts into a bird of pure light, circling above – the very same one that appeared to her in the crypt.
“I think it wants us to follow it,” she says.
“Then that is why we should not,” Avarice insists.
“Trust me, I’ve seen it before!” Remy sprints after the spectre, which soars through the heavy snow, leading them away from the ruined village to a cavern hidden in the mountainside. The five stand hesitantly before the cave’s tremendous maw, peering into the dark as the glowing apparition drifts further inside.
“Like I said. Grim death,” Avarice grunts.
Remy breathes uneasily. The last dungeon nearly claimed her life, and she had hoped not to set foot in another – fat lot of good hope has got her so far.
Lauren notices the anxiety flaring up on Remy’s face, a look she herself is all too familiar with, and presses her hand on Remy’s shoulder. “Hey, we’ll be alright if we stick together.”
Remy gives a thankful smile before turning back to the gaping maw of darkness. She tells herself, We’ll be okay, if Ozrune’s guiding us we’ll be okay. It has to be him, must be. With a sigh she draws Astrid’s sword that she had taken during their escape from Parousia. Its pale glow illuminates the cavern as she cautiously steps inside.
*
Regis unfurls a map, looks out at the vista from atop the crashed airship and points to the mountains on the eastern horizon. “If those are the Iron Top mountains, and that’s the Owl’s Window then that puts us somewhere about here, on the Quiet Rise just south of the Violent Summit.”
“Please tell me the Violent Summit is named ironically.” Ed hops from one foot to the other to keep warm.
Regis shakes his head. “It’s named for the storm over the mountain. Beyond that is the Scar. No man’s land.”
Fear smothers Ed like a pillow over his face, and he gazes at the vortex stretching from the heavens to the earth. A raging, swirling wall of snow and black cloud collide while booming thunder rolls over the rocky peaks.
“We got lucky,” Regis says.
“Lucky?!” Ed snaps. “We’re stranded, half of us are missing and Esmerelda is… well…”
Regis bows his head. “Forgive me, I misspoke. What I meant was, if the legends are to be believed, the Scar is where the crystal was forged. This must be Grimoirh’s destination. He has at least two shards and he’s days ahead of us. I know you’re worried about your friends, but if we don’t catch up to him soon, none of us will live long enough to see each other again.”
Games are supposed to be fun, but these weighty moral decisions are enough to break Ed. He can’t cope with the consequences when actual lives hang in the balance. He looks to Bengeo for reassurance, but the bandit is transfixed by something strange in the distance: a black mass growing on the southern horizon.
“What is that?” Ed asks.
He didn’t believe it when Diamond told him, but now they’re on his doorstep. Bengeo sighs. “The dead, marching.”
*
George lays another blanket over Esmerelda to keep her warm where she lies in the upturned cargo hold, atop a bed made of crates and fur skins.
The crow’s feet vanish from the corner of her eyes as she smiles tenderly at the worried boy who stokes the crackling fire Bengeo had lit in the centre of the room.
“Are you scared?” he asks.
She shakes her head. “There are worse fates than dying.”
George looks downcast and croaks, “What do you think happens… after you die? Do you believe in the lofty realm?”
Despite doing his best to hide it, Esmerelda can see the boy is deeply distressed.
“I’ve lived a long life, rich with adventure and folk good and bad, but as I got older all I dreamed of was a simple life. Used what coin I saved to open an inn, wasn’t much but it was mine, ’til it was gone. Warm beds, a roaring fire, good food and drink and loved ones lost, that’s all I long for. I expect that’s what I’ll find. So don’t be sad, little one, nothing lasts forever in this life and that’s alright. We all find each other again.”
He’s unsure whether it’s her words or the kind twinkle in her weary eyes that ease his worry, but either way he’s grateful for her company.
Ed and the others return from outside, solemn and silent, but the grim expressions on their faces say a lot.
“What is it?” George asks.
Bengeo and Regis exchange a severe glance, then the bandit sighs, “Undead. Thousands of them are coming our way.”
“Well, we can’t leave without Lauren and the others,” he replies.
“If we stay we’ll die,” says Regis.
“That’s bullshit,” George cries. “You and Bengeo can take ’em!”
Bengeo shakes his head. “Look, kid, I don’t like it either, but right now we’ve got to make some hard choices. If your sister is out there then it’s our job to keep you safe until you find her, and it ain’t safe here.”
“I don’t care, I’m not leaving without her and you can’t make me. I don’t have to listen to you, you’re not my dad.” George looks stone-faced at the bandit, but Bengeo can see he’s fighting back tears.
“Bengeo’s right.” Ed kneels beside George and rests a hand on his shoulder. “We need to make hard choices…”
George looks betrayed until a little smile crosses Ed’s lips.
“… So I’m staying too. We go together or we don’t go at all.”
“If we don’t go at all then we die,” Bengeo sighs.
Ed nods. “Then we die together.”
“Very well,” Regis sighs. “The cold will slow the undead down, but not for long.” The swordsman stands up straight and adjusts the scabbard on his back. “I’ll scout ahead, see if I can find a way past that storm that won’t kill us.” Before he leaves he holds a finger up to Ed. “I’d wager you have until dawn before they’re at your door, so take only what you can carry. Let’s just hope the others make their way here before then. I’ll leave markers for you to follow.”
Ed shakes the swordsman’s hand. “Thank you.”
With a sad smile Regis bids them farewell, slips through a hole in the cargo hold and begins the climb to the crater on the other side of the mountain.
*
The spectre floats a short way ahead of Remy and the others, casting its warm light across the gleaming walls of ice.
“Do you really think it knows a way out?” Lauren whispers to Remy, who nods.
“The last time I saw it, it led me to you and Mr Valentine.”
“Well, I don’t trust it.” Avarice grips her knives tightly and keeps her eyes fixed sharply on the apparition.
“We know,” Jessica sighs, “you haven’t shut up about it. Grim death, we get it.”
The troll sneers at her and strides ahead of them.
“What’s with her?” Jessica asks.
“She’s just… Avarice,” Remy says.
Jessica pulls a shit-eating grin. “Reminds me of someone else I know.”
Remy rolls her eyes. “Yeah well, she’s only spent a day with you, shows you how patient I am.”
Jessica pokes her tongue at the back of Remy’s head and makes an ugly face.
“Very mature,” Valentine remarks as he passes her.
Suddenly, like dwindling candlelight, the spectre shrinks until the darkness snuffs it out entirely. The group stop dead in their tracks, their anxious faces lit only by the cold glow of Remy’s enchanted sword.
“Now what?” Jessica panics.
“There’s only one way, we keep going,” Remy says.
“I say we go back,” says Valentine.
“And risk the blizzard?” Remy scoffs. “We’ll freeze before the sun comes up again.”
“She’s right,” Lauren says, “if we’re lucky this will lead us through the mountains.”
Valentine lets out a condescending laugh. “If we were lucky we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
“Very mature,” Jessica says still wearing that shit-eating grin of hers.
“It’s got to lead somewhere,” Remy says.
“And why’s that?” Valentine asks.
“Because we’re in a video game. Nothing is designed by accident. Dungeons, caves, they always lead to something important. Right?” Of course, they’re also always filled with something awful, but right now she’s trying to stay positive.
Remy looks to Lauren for reassurance and she nods earnestly. Holding her blade ahead to illuminate their path she guides them through the glittering tunnels.
“Grim death it is,” Avarice sighs.
*
Bengeo, Ed and George pile as much junk as they can salvage outside of the ship. The bandit tosses the last wooden crate onto the heap then empties a barrel of oil over it. “Got a light?” he asks Ed who rummages through the items he bought in Parousia and pulls a small parcel wrapped in cloth from his bag. He throws it to George who unfurls the rag and a black lump of coal plops into his hand.
“What is it?” He notices an incantation scrawled on the rag. “Mind of fire, soul on fire, feeling hot, hot, hot.” The stone glows red hot in his palm and he drops it with a yowl, then kicks it into the pile of wood which immediately ignites into a roaring bonfire. He plants his hand in the snow to cool it and looks impressed.
“Think they’ll see it?” he asks.
“Well, there sure as shit ain’t nothing else to see.” Bengeo scans the dark, desolate wasteland and sighs. “If they’re out there, they’ll see it.” He pats the boy on the head and returns inside to check on Esmerelda.
Ed warms himself by the fire, and upon stealing a glance, George notices Ed appears as worried as he feels.
“It’s okay if you’re scared,” the boy says.
“Huh?”
“Just because you’re scared, doesn’t mean you’re not brave.”
Ed smiles. “You think so?”
George nods, and hesitates to ask, “Do you think the crystal can really get us home?”
“Well, they say it can do anything, right?”
“Is it true it can bring the dead back to life?”
“Yeah, it sure seems that way.” Ed recalls the sight of the undead blackening the horizon. It chills him worse than the bitter cold, but George looks relieved, almost happy. He wonders what the boy is thinking, but decides, considering their dire predicament, to just let him enjoy whatever fleeting thought brings him comfort.
*
Around a long bend warm light flickers against the cavern walls, and Remy raises her shield defensively as a throaty wail resounds through the tunnel.
“What the F was that?” Jessica cowers behind Avarice.
A long humanoid shadow moves across the wall ahead and onto the floor, then a silhouette rounds the corner. The sound of creaking bone and breathy gasps grate their ears as it staggers towards them. Remy raises her sword, and its ethereal glow casts a light on the mysterious figure. It’s a man, sort of – broken and bloody, but he doesn’t quite look undead.
“Not me…” the figure croaks, “… should have been you…”
“Stay back!” Remy’s cry rouses not even a glance from the man. “Come any closer and I’ll run you through!” she warns.
“Should have been you!” the stranger hisses and raises a bony crooked finger at Lauren, who trembles as though his words bear some meaning. Remy thrusts her sword forward, and the figure hobbles back from whence it came.
“Well, that was nightmare fuel,” Jessica whimpers, blood pumping, eyes wide with terror.
“Wait!” Lauren calls out as the stranger’s murmurs carry through the tunnel. “Wait, please!” Without notice she sprints after him.
“Hey, what are you—?!” Remy calls to her, but she’s already gone. “So much for sticking together.”
They hurry after her and round the bend, where the cave widens out into a hollow chamber, and they find Lauren kneeling before a twisted burning car wreck.
“Is this real?” Remy notices tears streaming from Lauren’s eyes as the firelight flickers on her grieving face.
“You see it too?” she whimpers.
“It’s kind of hard to miss,” Remy replies.
Lauren breathes a sigh of relief. She was certain she had lost her mind, but if they see it too then that’s better, isn’t it? Probably not considering the kind of things that lurk in this world.
“How the hell did this get down here?” Valentine asks. The familiar shape of the car brings him some solace. It feels like ages since he’s seen anything normal, even though this is about as far from normal as a situation can get.
A foreboding creak reverberates from the wreck, and the shape of someone moves inside it.
“Should have been you!” the familiar voice calls out again. A charred arm stretches out from the flaming wreckage, pulls its mangled body from the car and crawls towards Lauren who bursts into tears.
“Stay back!” Remy warns, but the man pays her no mind. He extends his arms out wide, grasping air in Lauren’s direction.
“D-Dad, I’m sorry!”
“It should have been you!” the man croaks as she cowers at his charred shoes.
“Christ almighty!” Valentine gasps. “That thing is your dad?”
“Not helping!” Jessica berates him and wraps her arms around Lauren, turning her away from the creature. “Get rid of it!” she cries.
Remy swings and severs his head with a single blow. The body collapses in a heap at her feet.
“Can someone explain what the hell is going on?” the detective barks.
A harsh cackle bounces around them. They fix their eyes on the dismembered head.
“Think you’re tough, Remy Winters? I’ve seen you for what you are, a self-absorbed brat who’s no use to anyone!” the mangled head shrieks as its shape contorts with a bone-crunching pop into that of Remy’s career adviser, Norma, only with pale blank eyes.
“You’ve got no future, Remy. You’re not fit for purpose.” The head speaks in Norma’s grating voice. “You’re going nowhere, you should’ve died in that pit!”
Remy looks appalled as it shifts again into her mother. “You’re a rotten, callous bitch, I was so relieved when you left. I’d been waiting eighteen years to get rid of you. The second you came back into our lives you made everyone miserable because you poison everything. Your father had the right idea leaving, he could see what a vile girl you’d grow up to be!”
“It’s not real, don’t listen to it,” Jessica cries. “Mum would never say those things!”
But the cruel whisper in Remy’s ear returns, only louder – hate you everyone hates you, loser good for nothing no future you’ll die here.
“Tell her how miserable she makes you. She should know what a burden she is to us all.” The head speaks softly to Jessica, hoping to drive a wedge between the sisters.
Miserable burden no good to anyone. Remy shuts her eyes tight and spirals. Her feet feel leaden. She shudders as a hundred decrepit hands spring from the ground and drag her into the mud. Their raspy voices, sodden with contempt, drown her desperate pleas – Die here you’ll die here!
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Remy screams as the others scramble to pull her free.
Avarice brings her foot down on Helen’s severed head, splitting it like a melon, and in an instant the flaming car and the undead arms simply vanish, leaving the five of them in blackout darkness. The sound of their panicked breath echoes around the cavern as they huddle together.
“Daddy?” a little girl’s voice calls out from the shadows.
“Who is that?” Remy raises her glowing sword to illuminate the voice’s source.
“Daddy?”
Valentine feels a gentle tug on his coat tail.
“Where have you been, Daddy?”
His face drains of all colour. He shies away from his daughter’s apparition.
“It’s not real,” Jessica assures him.
“Can we get out of this horror palace?!” Unwilling to face the daughter he abandoned, he snatches his coat away from the girl and storms away.
“You heartless old fool, you’ll die here and no one will mourn you!” the girl hisses. Her voice deepens, becoming distorted. “Look at me!” she roars.
Jessica glances back and is startled by the child’s face – devoid of features, save for a ringed maw, lined with razor teeth, identical to the creature that stole her away and brought her to the game world. In the blink of an eye, she finds herself on stage at the Underbelly. She tries to sing, but no words come, only muffled screams of terror as she realises her mouth is sewn shut. A bottle strikes her in the face, cutting her forehead, and she backs away fearfully, cupping her wound as the crowd grow wild and claw their way onto the stage wielding bar stools and broken bottles. Avarice’s hand grasps her firmly and pulls her out of her hallucination and back into the moment.
Jessica frantically feels her lips, ensuring they are thankfully back to normal. “What’s happening?!” she gasps.
“It’s like our demons are coming to life,” Lauren whimpers.
Valentine takes Lauren by the arm and leads her away. He treads quickly and blindly through the intersecting passages, ignoring the howls and shrieks echoing behind them until they reach an exit. Jessica drops to her knees on seeing the cave mouth completely frozen over.
“Oh God.”
“It’s just another illusion!” Valentine charges at the wall and crashes into it with a thud, falling flat on his arse. “Not an illusion,” he groans.
“Something is coming!” Avarice draws her knives and stands ready for whatever approaches.
The thud of metal courses through the tunnel – a familiar noise that sends a visceral chill shooting down Remy’s spine. Her chest tightens around her racing heart as she stares intently at the dark tunnel. The God Cleaver ignites, illuminating him in hellfire, and Remy lifts her shield arm as he strides towards her.
“Vincent?” Lauren calls out to him, but the Dread Knight pays her no heed.
“Back off!” Avarice swipes her knives.
Grimoirh lunges. His flaming blade comes down between them with a whomp.
“That felt pretty real.” Jessica crawls backwards as he corners her and raises his sword to deliver a fatal blow. She releases a breathless gasp as the blade comes down.
Before it reaches her sister, Remy cleaves off Grimoirh’s arm. The Icerend tears through his armour and it shatters like glass.
“Get away from her!” she shrieks.
Grimoirh faces her slowly and she realises there’s no one beneath the armour – it’s moving on its own. Regardless, she can sense a fierce presence peering at her from beneath the ebony helmet. Before he can make another move, she runs him through with her sword, and the armour falls to pieces and melts away, revealing a small ethereal orb, which hovers before her. She pokes it with her sword and the ball freezes solid and hits the ground with a resounding ca-thunk.
“I told you. Wisps.” Avarice looks unimpressed.
“All that was because of this tiny thing?” Valentine asks.
“Are all other-worlders this dense?” the troll mutters.
“But the spirit that led us here looked just like the one Ozrune conjured to save me,” Remy says.
“Wisps are tricksters. They twist your hopes and fears against you to lure you to—”
“A grim death?” Jessica says.
Avarice scowls and sheathes her knives while the others look uncomfortable at having their deepest insecurities laid bare before each other. Lauren shrinks into her coat and faces the wall of the cave. She doesn’t want anyone to see her upset.
“False evidence appearing real,” Valentine mutters.
“Huh?” She looks teary-eyed at the old man.
“Just something I used to tell Sophie. She never liked the dark. F.E.A.R, false evidence appearing real.”
“You were with him when he died, weren’t you?” asks Jessica.
Lauren looks downcast. Her tears splatter her trainers.
Valentine places his hand gently against her arm. “Look, if your dad ever had a choice between him or you walking away from that wreck, he’d pick you every time, that’s the truth of it. What you think, what you saw, it’s not real.”
Avarice, Remy and Jessica watch silently as the old man consoles her. Every now and then he shows he’s still got a heart.
“It’s alright,” he says, “cry if you want, none of us will think any less of you. We’re barely holding it together ourselves.”
Her eyes sting as she fights back the flood streaming down her cold face.
“‘It should’ve been you’ – you can’t think like that. What happened, it’s not your fault and it’s not fair, but sometimes shit, horrible shit, it just happens to people who don’t deserve it.”
Her eyes burn with anguish at the old man as he holds his arms out to her, and she balls her fists as he embraces her slowly. The stench of smoke and whisky hit her as her walls come crumbling down. Her cries of sorrow and fury at the world echo through the frozen cavern. She fights Valentine, and he clings to her, easing her onto her knees while she comes undone, picturing the accident in her mind. Only fl-ash-es. She awoke a week later, her body broken in all sorts of ways. Her baggy clothes hide the scars – washed-out evidence of surgeries that restored her ability to walk, serving as an outward voice to her inner torment that her father is but a dream fading with every passing day.
Jessica tears up at the sight of Lauren utterly falling to pieces, buried in Valentine’s ratty coat. Her hand finds Remy’s and squeezes it tightly – an unspoken gesture of sisterhood, long overdue, offered from one to the other as they both realise how lucky they are with what they have. Their family may be dysfunctional at the best of times, and they’ve both experienced loss in their own way, but miraculously through that loss, they were given each other. Remy looks lovingly at Jessica and smiles apologetically while she struggles to hold in tears of her own.
Avarice too is touched by Lauren’s pain. Seeing this girl mourn the man that raised her resonates profoundly, and tears down her beliefs about trolls and humans. Perhaps they’re not so different after all. They certainly are no strangers to suffering.
Holding Lauren in his arms makes Valentine wonder about all the heartache he’s missed with his own daughter, all of the times she might have needed a shoulder to cry on but he wasn’t there. He lets out a pained sigh, expressing grief and regret as only he knows how. Oh well, all he can do is try to be a better man.
Having emptied herself of the pent-up grief, Lauren sits up and dries her eyes.
Jessica goes to console her. She’s always been good at that kind of thing. Good at seeing what people need and connecting with those around her. She wipes away her inky tears and sits next to Lauren, and the others give them room to talk. Valentine fumbles a cigarette out of his pocket and feels around for a lighter before he remembers yet again that he lost the damn thing, so he tosses the smoke away.
“That was a pretty good thing you just did,” Remy whispers. “I think you’d have been a good dad if you’d given yourself a chance.”
Valentine purses his lips, never one to wear his heart on his sleeve. He watches Jessica regale Lauren of how she threw up on stage at her last gig. The story lightens the mood and even elicits laughter as Lauren composes herself.
“It’s time we got out of this hole,” Valentine grumbles.
“Yes.” Avarice taps her knife against the wall of ice blocking the mouth of the cave, using the sound to indicate its weakest point, then drives the blade into it with force and starts chipping away.
Inspired by her determination, Remy joins her and together they hack away until the ice falls in blocks. One by one they step out to the cold tundra, where the blizzard has calmed and the sun crawls once more over the eastern horizon. With the rugged mountains at their back, they trek over the northern ridge and survey the land. The faint glow of Bengeo’s pyre twinkles in the distance like the northern star and banishes Remy’s despair.
She turns to Avarice and wonders, “Strange, we didn’t see what you’re afraid of.”
The troll looks sullen. “When you have lost everything, there is nothing to fear.” She turns her gaze south, tightening her eyes at strange shapes moving over the foot of the slopes. A thousand walking corpses, living skeletons, vicious draugr and shrieking wights plough towards them. Among them walk the accursed – larger twisted horrors warped by the crystal’s malevolent power. Hideous appendages have mutated and broken through their rotting flesh like a demonic cancer.
“Oh God.” Remy turns whiter than the snow as she beholds the black march and covers her ears to muffle the monsters’ ear-splitting cries. Death is coming for them.