Teisel moved the machine with her mind, marveling at how smooth it was going. “This is amazing!” She cheerily told Druin. Druin’s daughter, Faylia stood stoically at his side, her own machine spinning in circles uncontrollably.

  Druin smiled at the little robots, “The head of the metalfolk seemed dubious about the idea, but using similar joints and inserting a relay really does help.”

  Faylia huffed, “I’m horrible at this.”

  Druin raised an eyebrow, tapping his daughter on the shoulder. She scowled, the sudden hivemind attack taking her by surprise. But… she somehow took it in stride anyway, as she always did.

  “Good defense,” Druin praised, putting a hand on her head, “Just try to treat that thing like an opponent, you aren’t taking it seriously.”

  She nodded and reconnected to the machine, finally successfully commanding it to stop spinning. Teisel paused her own device, glancing over at the other three trainees. They were all leaps and bounds ahead of Teisel and Faylia, to the point where Teisel wasn’t sure if they were somehow cheating.

  Most of them were higher born though, they had more practice with things like this and probably had access to toys just as expensive ever since they were old enough to walk. A hint of bitterness bubbled up in Teisel, but she closed down that thought after a moment; there was no use dwelling on social imbalances.

  She sighed, at the very least, this meant the wheeled chair she used would probably be upgraded again. If she could command it to move with a thought, that would make a lot of things much easier.

  “What are they preparing us for?” Teisel asked after a moment of hesitation, her eyes on Druin, “What’s going to happen? We already went through all those special procedures.” And why in the world would they need me for it? Her mind whispered, a cripple; someone who’s useless.

  Druin smiled, “Hopefully nothing, but we have to prepare. Just in case.”

  Keshel found himself in another memory as he touched the tree.

  Keshel felt her pain stronger than before, more stark, more full. Pain. All she knew was pain.

  Keshel could hear at the edge of the darkness the anxious chatter of nurses. But through all of that, Teisel’s pain was the only tangible connection to reality. Her mind was slow, but her dreams were still filled with memories. Ulenik. That name adopted a terrible connotation as it echoed through her mind, her dreams bringing rage, sorrow, anger… and fear.

  Keshel sat beside the whimpering form of Teisel in the darkness, watching with wide eyes as her mind went over and over that same moment. Her flailing arms, her feet slipping out from beneath her. Teisel came to know those moments with impossible accuracy. She remembered the scent of oil in the air. She remembered the sounds of machines lightly whirring as she fell. She remembered the sounds of her own screams. She remembered the impact. The pain. The impossible agony that somehow pervaded itself throughout her entire person.

  The scent of blood.

  Keshel placed a hand on her back, not expecting to feel anything but surprised when he found a physical form. He kept his hand there, knowing that this memory couldn’t feel his support but giving it to her anyway.

  She remembered how everything went dark. She remembered losing consciousness as her mind focused again and again on that name. That terrible name. Ulenik. He’d done this to her. He’d hated her and used his hatred to destroy her.

  Keshel held her form tighter.

  Am I even still alive? She wondered. Perhaps I’ve died and this is the true afterlife. A nothingness accentuated by my pain. She didn’t know. There was only pain and fear for a long, long time.

  Keshel closed his eyes.

  Her mind repeated the scenario again, trying to figure out what she could have done differently. This time in her mind, Ulenik had taken control of her limbs and forced her to jump. The next time her mind went through it, she heard a woman’s voice crying over her as she lay broken, losing awareness. In a different iteration, Teisel felt herself clinging to the iron bar as something pulled her downward, trying to take her to death. That time, she felt as if she was being ripped in half.

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  That was like the demons here, in the dream realm. Keshel realized, they always pulled… On and on they went. Over and over. Teisel fell; she always fell. Sometimes it was her own fault, sometimes it was the voice who called himself Ulenik, but she always fell and hit the bottom before she could wake up.

  She wished she could just wake up.

  What kind of mind would do this to itself? Keshel wondered. Why is she still suffering? It seemed as if it would never end, never in a thousand years.

  And in a way, it hadn’t.

  --

  As the second memory faded, Keshel reflected that he was alone. That didn’t feel… quite right. He wondered why.

  He was glad though that she had some happy memories. Even if her own mind had been betraying her near the end, it was still—as far as Keshel was concerned—almost joyful when compared to the others he’d been seeing lately.

  “Druin was a liar.” a voice whispered from nowhere in particular. It was Teisel’s voice. Keshel still wasn’t certain why she’d manifested as a person here when she hadn’t before. The strange part was that the voice wasn’t even mental in nature. Keshel had come to expect that.

  “He was?” Keshel asked, looking around for her.

  “He knew. He knew and yet he never did anything about it. He didn’t care. He let me believe that he cared. And yet he shattered that hope as firmly as all my other hopes.”

  “What did he do?” Keshel asked.

  Teisel continued to ignore him. Could she even hear him? Ah, there she was. He peered behind the curve of the massive tree, and she stood there, looking up at the branches. “Betrayal comes in every flavor.”

  Keshel stepped toward her, she glanced at him, well… more through him. He knew that she could tell he was there, he’d tested this before, but for some reason she looked right through him.

  Somewhere behind Teisel, a man appeared out of nothing. He was made entirely of black smoke, but Keshel could recognise his features as Druin. She didn’t even glance at him. “Leave this place, future betrayer. Disavow Teisel. Just let her die. It would be a mercy.”

  Teisel turned around, glaring at the shadowy Druin for several long, tense heartbeats. The shade didn’t respond in any way. After a moment, she dissolved into white smoke.

  The shade turned toward Keshel, “You are alone.” It pointed out.

  Keshel shrugged, “I’ve been alone for a long time. It’ll be harder now but I can do it.”

  “Interesting.”

  Keshel frowned at the shade, “I’m used to things made of black smoke trying to kill me.”

  Druin grinned, the spark in his eye really didn’t fit his kindly face. “Yes, that i the plan.”

  Keshel tensed up, “Great. Well, I don’t plan on dying, so maybe you could go bother someone else?”

  The shade examined him for a long moment, “Teisel doesn’t think anyone can save her.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results, how do you think you can possibly help her alone?”

  Keshel glanced away, “I don't know. But if I don’t try I don’t know who would. She deserves someone to at least be there, to know what happened. Do you understand that at least?”

  Druin was still watching him curiously. “I see. There goes that theory then.”

  There was a long moment of silence. Keshel contemplated asking ‘what theory,’ but the look the shade was giving him said that it wouldn’t elaborate.

  “Teisel shouldn’t have made me intelligent.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because if you’re going to fail no matter what, then why in the world should I go through the effort of killing you?”

  Keshel blinked at him slowly, “Ah… well you wouldn’t, that’s a good point.”

  The shade nodded curtly and then dissolved into black smoke.

  Keshel stared at the empty spot for a long moment, feeling his heartbeat slow into a calmer state. Stars that had been odd. At least he didn’t have to worry about dying at the moment…

  “Hey.”

  Keshel nearly jumped out of his skin when another voice spoke; he really needed a break from this kind of thing. Keshel turned around quickly. It was one of those niortak from before; squall, he’d forgotten about them. They were probably important. “What?!”

  The man blinked at him, “Something’s wrong here, can you feel it?”

  Keshel glanced at the black smoke the fake Druin had turned into. “Well something is off, but I’m a bit busy right now.”

  “Maybe I can help? You’re here to help Teisel too, right? You’ve been seeing the memories?”

  Keshel nodded slowly, frowning at the stranger. There was… well there was something wrong about how willing he’d been to forget about the niortak earlier. “I’m Keshel.”

  “Tosono.” The stranger said. “How about we stick together? I tried to talk Reiav, that girl from earlier, into coming with me, but she refused.” He smiled, his two blue eyes sparkling slightly.

  Two… why was it so strange for this man to have two? “Alright,” Keshel said slowly, “I was going to just walk around the rest of this tree and see if any more memories appear.”

  Tosono grinned, “Great!” He plodded forward, leaving Keshel to catch up.

  Something was very wrong here.

  Something was still missing.