Chapter 45-
Ten years ago, Mello Drameda found himself wandering the mountains. Their whipping winds lashed at his arms and legs while he searched for something, someone, in the winter snow. The Andeidra-Demeena War had just ended, and he’d simply returned to the nation of his birth; he couldn’t call it his home, because that would have been a perversion of the word.
The stone halls of the Redmaines made him feel as if he were walking with God. The enormous majesty of the mountains, almost in spite of their silence, was awe-inspiring and terrifying. It only served to discourage him inside, though.
“Is heaven like this?” he wondered, passing a dead tree that grew from the rock. “I think I’d hate it.”
There! Up further, up that cliff!
He scaled it like his life depended on it, ascending a hundred feet in only the span of ten minutes to reach the top of a steep mountain. A natural pathway had formed, paved by snow and wrapping around the perimeter of the mountain to its flat top. Mello’s boots crunched in the snow; he envisioned himself picking up weight as he went, his feet becoming heavier and heavier, but it only strengthened his resolve.
Through the snow and rock…
Gray and white,
Gray and white,
Gray and—
A flash of red. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked around. He was only a moment’s sprint from rounding the top of the mountain, and all around him, President Perren’s blood stained the snow.
“What is this—?”
For a brief instant, a low rumbling resonated around him, echoing off the mountains. Exhaling sharply, Mello found his composure again, and the blood was gone, the noise was gone.
The mountaintop was empty, devoid of life. He gazed at the scenery around him until his eyes settled on the valley below. The rumbling commenced once more in his mind.
“Down there,” he whispered to himself. “You’re down there.”
Mello slid down the rock face, feeling the mountain give way beneath his feet the faster he accelerated, until he finally kicked off of it and shot through the air. Tumbling head first, he gained distance from the stone, falling as though he were flying.
“The ground hits in five, four, three, two—”
“[SPACEBOY]!”
Mello landed as softly as a feather on a craggy step. Descending a few more feet, he found himself at the bottom of the wide valley. A lake of snow covered the ground, his boots sunk in a foot with his first step. Hesitation gripped him for a moment, but when he closed his eyes, he could hear the rumbling still.
Risking hypothermia, he plunged further into the valley, to the source of the sound. There, that was where he would find what he was looking for. He descended further into the cold with each step, pushing the snow out of his way just to make his way through. Mello tromped further and further, until he lost all feeling in his hands. The next to go numb was his face, his scarred forearms. Gradually, he lost more and more of himself until his heart was all he knew was there.
His breathing grew heavier, his veins struggled to pump blood through his body as quickly.
“I wonder if I could stretch it… the limits of my Vocation?”
Abruptly, he felt something strange: the lack of something. Through his dead-frozen ears, there was nothing.
“The sound— it’s stopped?”
Mello pushed through one last barrier of snow, breaking through into another snowy pit. He tumbled down a few feet, grasping at the snow, but nothing was there to hold.
“I can’t fall any further, because it’s— it’s down there!”
Snow pillowed beneath his feet as he desperately scrambled back up the side of the pit to no avail.
“I need to try it; I don’t know if it will do so, but I can’t accept this!”
He grit his teeth before opening his mouth, and through frigid, chapped lips, he called,
“[SPACE-!!”
But before he’d activated his Vocation, the wall of snow seemed to crumble, and he plummeted down into the pit. The landing was soft, as he fell onto the packed snow, but that was the least of his concern. Mello Drameda had endured many worse injuries than what this presented, his real concern was what lay with him at the bottom of the pit.
Opening his eyes, he sat up. The flash of red returned. All around him, the pit was stained with crimson blood that had soaked into the driven snow.
Mello grunted, whipping around wildly.
“What is this?!” he cried, rage mounting in his throat. “Why is this his blood?!”
And from a few feet away, in the shadow of the pit, where no light reflected, an answer.
“You know whose blood this is?” The voice was low, raspy, and utterly apathetic. Mello’s breath stopped, and he pushed himself up against the wall.
“Whatever trick your ability uses, it’s not a match for mine!”
“Oh? Do you usually just go around, starting fights?”
Mello could feel fist barely enough that he could tighten it. The thing spoke again.
“I’ve already guessed your Vocation, but I’m curious about your character.”
Mello’s eyes flickered. Spaceboy was an intensely secretive ability, and he hadn’t even used it in any easily understandable way, did this… thing know it?
“If you knew to come out here, you must have some special sense.” A moment of quiet passed them by. It didn’t sound to Mello as if the thing was done speaking. Suddenly, the clouds above them parted, and the sun turned just enough that he could see what was speaking to him.
It looked like a young man with long, wispy grey hair that flowed down over the snow. His body was a sickening shade of yellow, like a corpse, draped in a thin white robe that left his skin visible as it pressed against it. A golden ring crowned his head, and a snake coiled around his neck, eating its own tail. He was on his back, propped up on his elbows. In one arm he held a skeleton, the other hand tracing a finger over its shoulder.
“Nothing lives here, not even me, what do you think of that?”
—
Gallow sat up, rubbing his temple. Blinking to adjust to the morning light, he looked over to his right at Janna and Sonsee, still fast asleep.
“Guess I’m the first one up,” he mused, blowing a deep sigh from his nostrils and letting his eyes droop.
“We’ll give them five more minutes, what do you say?”
Gallow’s heart jumped; his gaze snapped to Disael, sitting cross legged on a nearby rock.
“Second one up…”
Within the hour, camp was gathered up, and they were headed down the mountain again.
“♫ Winds will blow and rains will fall,
The Earth does quake and the Lord does cry,
Still the mountains stand up tall,
No one knows, we’ll never know why ♪”
Janna hummed a little tune, bobbing her head back and forth, her suitcase swung in time with the beat. A little smile drawn across her face.
“What’s that?” Sonsee asked, prompting her to stop.
“Oh, it’s a song my dad used to sing,” Janna rubbed her cheek for warmth. “There weren’t any big mountain ranges around Sigrit, so I asked him what he was talking about, and he told me his family lived in the plains for a while.”
“The plains?”
“Well, there’s no mountains out there, but his mom used to sing it around the house.”
Janna was quiet for a moment, the sound of gravel crunched beneath her feet.
“I never got to meet my grandparents.”
While the two of them were conversing, Gallow pulled up to Disael, ahead of them and out of earshot.
“Hey, old man.”
Gallow waited for Disael to look emotionlessly from the path to him before he said any more.
“You’re a Vocation-user, are you?”
“A what?” For the first time, their guide looked confused.
“You know what I’m talking about,” Gallow pressed, annoyed. “You have one as well, don’t you?”
“I have nothing of the sort, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” His voice was gruff, straightforward, in the way that older people manage to be when they don’t like you.
“Then how do you know what this is?” Gallow held up his right hand, displaying the Navigator’s sigil.
Disael almost broke into laughter.
“That sigil, whatever it is,” he explained amusedly. “Has an incredible amount of energy, doesn’t it?”
“W-what—?” It was Gallow’s turn to be confused.
“It’s a talent my father taught me, when I was young, to see otherworldly things like that.”
“P-p-p-pardon?”
Disael had said it so casually, like it was a common thing.
“Are you talking about spirit sight?”
“Spirit sight? I guess you could call it something like that.”
Gallow activated Navigator’s eyes, looking Disael up and down. The older man had a relatively normal spirit body, up until he examined his eyes. Crowded around them was a concentration of energy that outlined them in a pale gray light.
“You… you said that your father taught you that…?”
“That’s what I said,” Disael was further amused by inspiring such befuddlement in a youngster.
“Just who was your father?” Gallow asked the question cautiously, though he didn’t know why. It just seemed like the answer would be big, like he wouldn’t want to know the answer to it.
“He was a guide, like myself,” Disael stated.
The tension in Gallow’s heart untangled instantly.
“Oh.”
…
A moment of silence.
“Did he do anything else?”
“No, my mother died when I was young, my father was born and died in Kilroy.”
“Huh… Where’s your family from?”
“New Hopeland, by the Serpent Isles, if you know where that is.”
“I’ll… I’ll have to check a map. How did your dad know that?”
“Know what?”
Gallow let out a quick sigh in frustration.
“Spirit sight!”
“Oh, that?” Disael chuckled. “I never asked him, he said it was a family trade.”
Gallow hated working with the elderly.
“Alright, if you don’t know anything about it, I guess we’ll never know.”
He looked at their surroundings, the high peaks of the mountains.
“How close are we?”
Disael suddenly became serious.
“After that pass, we’ll be in the valley.”
“What do you know about it? What does it do?”
“If I knew, I would’ve told you, boy.”
“But,” Gallow turned his head to him. “You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”
“I watched its shadow in the snow, it spared me, but I have no idea why.”
In thirty minutes’ time, they were at the foot of the pass.
“Alright,” Disael turned around, signalling them to stop. “Beyond this is the Valley of Bones. Every traveler who’s passed through here has died. The women should stay back.”
“Sonsee should come,” Gallow stated, causing Disael to look at him unexpectedly, then at her.
“If you say so,” the guide conceded. “But the child should stay behind. It’s too dangerous for her.”
Janna’s brow furrowed ever so slightly.
“Okay,” she agreed. “It’s too dangerous for me… If you say it is…”
If the valley posed such a threat, she wanted to be there with her friends. In the end, she would rather know whether or not they were hurt than stay back, anxiously awaiting their return, but there was nothing she could do for them.
Being a liability was a bad feeling.
Okay, then,” Gallow put his hand on her shoulder. “Janna, we’ll be back in no time.”
He looked at her with strength in his eyes, and she tried her best to reflect it back in hers.
“Don’t worry,” Sonsee offered. “We’ll be fine. I want you to sing me some more songs from your family when we’re done.”
Janna gave a modest smile, struggling against the anxiety in her chest.
They bid their farewells and turned around to head up the pass. She watched them leave, praying silently for their safety. Janna found that in times of distress, she was able to focus more on the words of her prayer than what was ailing her.
It was another five minutes until they were at the top of the pass, gazing down into the snowy valley.
“It’s snowing here?” Sonsee asked. “How can it have snowed so much here, but behind us there’s barely any?”
“This valley is always like that,” Disael answered. “We only notice it now because it hasn’t snowed too much where we were before.”
They descended into the Valley of Bones cautiously, watching their surroundings. Gallow thought that, if one imagined there was an enemy nearby, they might trick themselves into seeing or hearing one.
Their boots made crunching sounds in the deep snow, which only grew deeper as they proceeded onwards.
Gallow stopped.
“Do you hear that?”
The color drained from Disael’s face.
“The… the rumbling…” he whispered. “It’s here! It’s nearby!”
Gallow and Sonsee drew their weapons, Disael produced a sharp-looking curved knife from his side. All three of them stood back-to-back, keeping a close watch on their surroundings.
“I don’t hear anything,” Sonsee told them.
“Listen for it!” Disael growled, his eyes darting around.
She surveyed the pure white snow that swallowed up the valley. Looking deeply into it, she found her mind wandering from where they were.
And then, she heard it.
“That noise, I couldn’t hear it… It’s not because it’s quiet, it’s because—”
“The sound,” she almost shouted. “I couldn’t hear it because my spirit sight isn’t good, but spirit isn’t just sight, like what Melty said—”
“What are talking about?” Gallow asked urgently.
“The sound isn’t physical, it’s coming from a Vocation!”
Gallow’s face grew severe.
“A…?”
—
“How do you know my Vocation? Who are you?” Mello’s voice carried more threat with it now, his nerves had calmed down slightly, and he was rmentally preparing for combat.
The thing that looked like a young man frowned, his eyes drooped further.
“I can read the texture of your soul-- Mello? Is that your name? Forgive me, I am Roman Radcliffe, I’m sure you have some idea of what I am here.”
“Roman?” Mello looked at him side-eyed. “Are you a man?”
“Do I look that effeminate?” Roman smiled, but his smile was weak; apathy oozed from every pore on his face.
“I meant human,” Mello corrected him. “Are you a human?”
Roman closed his eyes and rested his head on the skeleton’s skull.
“I am what’s left of humanity, after it’s been washed away beneath the snow.” He breathed through his nostrils, planting a kiss on the skull before letting the air out past his lips. “Your Vocation is quite similar to mine, Mello. We’re both creatures of hate.”
“Don’t speak about me like you know who I am.” Mello’s voice was chilling, even in this icy pit.
“Pardon me,” Roman looked back at him. “I should have been more specific; I am a creature of hate, you’re a creature of spite.”
The line of sight between them was like a high-tension wire. Roman continued.
“That’s why your Vocation is so easy to figure out, it matches the texture of your soul. Would you like to see mine?”
Mello went from sitting to crouching, preparing himself.
“Show me your ability, if you dare to fight me.”
Roman let out a weak laugh. This was the most interesting visitor he’d had in ages.
“If you insist…”
Mello clenched his fist, filling his lungs with air as he watched Roman’s lips part once more.
“[LIVING DEAD GIRL]!”
—
*Crunch*
They froze.
“Was that one of—”
But before Sonsee could say anything more, they heard it again, from a different direction.
“The rumbling… It’s getting louder.” Disael’s face had not regained its color; the knife shook in his hand.
*Crunch*
Again.
“Where is that coming from?” Gallow scanned the close horizon, but saw nothing.
“I don’t see anything…” Sonsee confirmed.
“Disael?” Gallow asked, noticing their guide’s silence, but he gave no response. “Disael? Hey, old man, do you see anything?”
“I’m…” Disael choked out.
“Huh?”
“I’m… I’m afraid…”
“What are you—” Gallow’s words died in the air.
The noise was overwhelming.
A flash of red.
The snow around them was stained in blood.
“What the hell?!” he cried, reeling backwards into Sonsee, knocking his head against hers. Quickly blinking from the pain, he saw that suddenly there was no longer any blood.
“No, was it even there to begin with?”
“Sonsee—”
“Ah! What the hell?” she rubbed the back of her head, maintaining her view.
“Did you see that?”
“See what?”
“For a moment, there was blood— everywhere— in the snow!”
“No? What are you talking about?”
“What the hell…” he whispered to himself. “Disael, what is this thing?”
But Disael couldn’t answer, his whole body was trembling.
*Crunch*
“Again! Where is it?!” Sonsee looked around them, but saw nothing.
“G-Gallow, Sonsee…” Disael muttered, his teeth chattering.
“What is it?” Gallow asked forcefully.
Disael spun around and grabbed Gallow’s shoulder, turning him around as well. Sonsee gave up her watch to look at the guide with concern.
“You two,” he begged. “Whatever happens, I need you two to forgive me, please!”
“What are you—?”
“Please! For what will happen to you!”
Gallow threw Disael’s arm off of his shoulder.
“Speak straight, old man! What are trying to say?!”
A voice echoed through the mountains.
“He’s trying to tell you without telling you,” it prompted everyone to turn in circles, eyes darting to every place it could be coming from.
“No!!” Disael screamed. “Don’t!!”
“Ah, shame… The shadow of sin! Sin, the cousin of hate!!”
Gallow brought his gun up. Silence in the snow, for just a moment, until the voice rang throughout the rock faces once more.
“[LIVING DEAD GIRL]!!!”
The snow at their feet exploded; something was within it, many shapes.
“Ah!!” Sonsee cried bringing her spear up.
A hand lunged for Gallow’s leg. He fired a shot at it, bursting through its palm.
“What is that?!”
From the ground around them, four gray, tattered creatures had burst into the open. Gallow pulled the trigger, and nailed the one nearest him in the head. Sonsee swung her spear and sliced through the head of one, bisecting it at an angle. They looked almost human, they looked like…
“Are these corpses?!” Gallow shot another in the head, leaping over it. “We need to get some distance!”
Sonsee and Disael followed him, running back to the pass. Two more arms burst through the snow in front of them, which soon turned to four, clawing their way out of the ground. Sonsee swiped at them, cleaving their bodies in two. The top halves fell into the snow, and the legs collapsed along with them.
“Good!” Gallow gasped. Suddenly, from behind, they heard the sound of snow crunching.
“What now?” he moaned under his breath as they all turned to see what was approaching.
“Yamih…” Sonsee whispered the name of the greatest Atamape spirit.
To their horror, the corpses they’d cut and shot were now limping towards them in the snow. The damage they’d sustained had done nothing to them, one was walking with only half a head.
Realizing what this meant, they looked back to the two corpses at their feet.
“Dammit!” Gallow yelled, but one had already gripped his leg. Sonsee cut the arm at the elbow, then slashed the thing’s head. Gallow fired another two shots into the other’s forehead.
Three corpses burst from further up, then two more from their right. Running to the left, they were greeted by a burst of snow as another two popped up from the ground.
“Has he not told you?” the voice echoed throughout the mountains again. “I pity you, travelers, this man has brought you here to suffer for eternity!”
“Disael? What is he talking about?!” Gallow yelled angrily.
“I’m— I’m sorry…!” the old man lamented.
“This man’s grandfather,” the voice called. “Was the one who created me!”
Gallow blasted another corpse’s head.
“Seventy years ago!” it boomed. “His grandfather led me through this valley, and slit my throat!”
“No!” Disael cried. “Please, I can’t—”
“I had known him since we were children, I loved him more than anyone!’
“I’m sorry! I can’t apologize!!”
Gallow and Sonsee battled through the shambling horde of undead as the voice cried throughout the walls of the valley.
“I laid in the snow for an eternity, wondering why I was full of so much hatred, until I realized the secret no one else on this Earth knows: I was never without it! Your lives are too short to come to this understanding! In your souls, you’re all still cocooned up! You still think that hate and love are opposed, they’re the same damn thing!!”
Shot after shot, swing after swing, they fought off Living Dead Girl’s avatars while Disael cowered on the ground in fear. Over and over, the corpses stood back up or scraped themselves across the ground, without end. Sonsee felt the fatigue in her arms slowly building, she had no chance to breathe.
“All of your sadness and regret is reborn here, in living death!”
Gallow pulled the trigger.
*Click*
“I’m out of ammo!”
Gritting his teeth, he flashed his sigil.
“What Disael said— about fighting the soul of death— this must be it!”
“[NAVIGATOR]!!”
His spirit body burst from him. There were six ghouls in the immediate area around them, Sonsee took care of three behind him with a quick horizontal slash, leaving the rest to him, with one closest.
Adrenaline pumping through his veins, he launched Navigator at the corpse, its fist flew in for an uppercut with blazing speeds.
“Yes!!!”
His arm passed straight through the corpse, like it was mist.
“W-what?” was all he could choke out.
“Gallow—?” Sonsee asked, fear spiking in her heart when she heard his voice. She turned around just in time to watch as the corpse lumbered one step closer to Gallow, and drive its fist straight through his guts, skewering him.
“GALLOW!!!” Her scream echoed through the halls of the valley, sending birds of prey flapping off of their perches.