Garden Of The Abyss

"The clock...how long was I asleep?" Ren yawned quietly as he looked up towards the clock.

It was no use, he didn\'t even know what time it was when he went to sleep. He slowly got up drowsily, stretching his tired limbs. Making his way back to where he originally entered the library, he found that Hodwin still hasn\'t returned.

"I hope they\'re alright…" He muttered to himself.

His eyes met with something peculiar sticking out from the book the librarian was reading--a feathered bookmark. In an act of half-asleep curiosity, he slid the bookmark from the book without realizing the potential repercussions from the elven librarian.

"A bookmark...he said a special bookmark could be used to enter the library, then...could it also do the reverse?" He asked himself as he gazed at the bookmark in his hand.

It was agonizing to sit there in lonesome, able to do nothing except wait and wait. Even if it was a risk that he acknowledged--he had to do it.

"Now how do I actually use this," Ren asked himself.

He held up the bookmark in front of himself, holding it like a key.

"Urr...summon, no...open door?" He commanded with no confidence in his own words.

To his own surprise, the bookmark vibrated in his hand, subtly glowing with a vibrant warmth as the door formed out of thin air in front of him. Dozens of tiny particles of light gathered into a shapeless mass before forming into the shape of the door.

"That...worked," Ren uttered in disbelief.

He looked at the mystic door as it hummed with a resonance of mana. Part of him wanted to stay in the safety of the library, but he felt his own sanity dwindling in the abyssal chambers of endless knowledge. His hand trembled as it came close to the door handle, feeling every possibility run through his mind, every scenario that could lead to pain and regret.

"Come on, be a man for once, Ren Nakamura--!" He yelled at himself.

In an act of bravado and reckless abandon, he gripped the door handle--opening it and stepping through the magical door.

The smell hit his nostrils instantly, scrunching his nose as his face contorted from the ungodly stench that filled the air. Before he could cover his nose to block the smell, his body responded by gagging--losing control over his bodily function as all he could do was continue to cough and gag at the horrid stench. Tears left his eyes as the rotten aroma infiltrated his nose, only able to throw up vile liquid from his nearly empty stomach.

"What the hell...is that?" He asked himself, wiping the bile from his lips as he began to walk through the empty courtyard.

The opulent walls were now painted with blood, silver blades protruding from both the walls and floors as chunks of flesh were attached to the tools of violence. The sight immediately caused him to hurl once more, matching the smell to the source. A place he had just accepted as his home, a place of nobility and history, was overturned into a nightmarish mindscape.

Halls that were once the embodiment of grandeur now were presented as a battlefield, layered with blood, guts, and steel. Soon, his mind ignored the stench as his senses were overwritten with horror, slowly making his way through the hellish halls.

"Mila...Meinhard, you\'re alive, aren\'t you…?" He muttered to himself as he traversed the gruesome manor.

Somehow the nauseating stench of contents which should not be spilled made it difficult for him to walk as if the horrible smell constricted his muscles.

--There\'s no way, I won\'t believe it. Did that Argonaut really do this--? How long has it been?

It seemed the deeper he traveled through the once bright, lavish manor, it became grimmer and littered with the presence of death. The amount of blood didn\'t even make sense to him, the only explanation would be if someone intentionally decorated the manor with it.

Through his own two eyes, the scenery before him was if he had peeked into a kaleidoscope of scarlet, everything had been plastered in blood and flesh.

"Rouge…" Ren muttered to himself.

Even his own footsteps tricked him, feeling the presence of something--someone\'s bloodlust. Tracing his fingertips along the wall to his left, keeping himself balanced as he begrudgingly pushed himself forward--a thunderous boom echoed through the halls.

"An elf, an old veteran, and now--a spirit as well? It\'s my lucky day, isn\'t it?"

The voice originated from around the corner he was about to turn, the frivolous tone was unmistakable--it was Rouge.

--"Spirit"? Does he mean Andromeda? Wait...Elf?Old Veteran? He can\'t mean--Hodwin and Norbert?

"Silence, human--your soul will find no rest once I\'m through with you--!" A high-pitched, scowling voice of a young girl yelled out in response to Rouge\'s taunts.

--That\'s definitely Andromeda.

He pressed himself against the wall, feeling his heart slam itself against his chest under the immense pressure exuding from the west hall. Before he could peek around the corner to get a visual confirmation of the situation--his body nearly leaped from his skin as he felt his sleeve get tugged on.

"Wha-" Ren quickly turned to face whatever had touched him.

"Shh!" Althaus was suddenly beside him, with a look of pure terror wrapped on his noble face.

The nobleman had certainly seen better days. His meticulously woven suit looked as if he had walked through a hailstorm of blades. Not only that--his body was in no matter condition, the way his arm dangled from below the elbow--it was clearly broken.

"We must get out of here--now," Althaus whispered in haste to Ren.

"But--"

"Don\'t worry about Andromeda. She is merely a spirit, death is but a parting from the physical realm, now we must go!" Althaus urged him, wincing from his injuries.

As much as he wanted to try being a hero, he didn\'t have it in him. It was a lot harder than it looked from the media to be an actual hero--to push past that paralyzing fear and put your life on the line. In that second, that moment of hesitation, faced with the choice of running or attempting to help Andromeda--he came to a realization.

--I\'m not a hero. All I can think about is how badly I want to run away, that\'s all my mind can focus on.

He hesitantly nodded his head, much to the relief of Althaus, who himself didn\'t seem to be in his right mind. Turning his back on the side of his false heroism, he tucked tail and began to traverse the halls with the nobleman, who actually knew the layout of this extensive house.

The world seemed displeased with this choice as if rubbing salt into the wound--the blood-curdling screams of the spirit rang through the halls, piercing his dismayed heart even further. Stopping for just a moment to look back, the man quickly dragged him forward away from the source of death. Althaus pushed the doors open that were blocking their paths, finding themselves to be in the tattered, bloodbath of a ballroom.

"What happened...Althaus, what happened here?" Ren finally asked once they were out of ears-reach from the Argonaut.

All he could see in front of his gaze was the overwhelming existence of death. The flooring was torn apart as if a tornado had swept through the land without a hint of mercy in its path of destruction. It was difficult to discern their identities, but just by intuition alone, he recognized the brutalized corpses of the head butler and the librarian, not a single spec of their bodies were left untouched by the multitude of blades lodged within them.

"I...I miscalculated. There was no way I could\'ve known their perception was this great--we weren\'t just under their noses, we were already within their grasp the moment you arrived here," Althaus slammed his fist against the once beautifully decorated wall.

"What\'re you talking about…?"

"...it\'s no use scorning the past, we must see to it we at least make it out with our heads on our shoulders. For the sake of their selfless sacrifices--Norbert, Hodwin…" Althaus seemed to be on the brink of tears, looking at the mangled corpses of his associates.

"What about Meinhard? Althaus--where is Meinhard?" Ren asked him with a tremble in his voice.

The reclusive look that overtook the nobleman\'s eyes shook the young man\'s heart. In a glimpse of anger, driven by denial, he swiped the man\'s collar, squeezing the fabric until his fists fell red from the sudden rush of blood.

"Tell me, Althaus! Tell me--!" Ren\'s voice came out shakily as the tears fled from his body, "you know, don\'t you? So just tell me!"

"I don\'t know anything, Ren, but look at the situation we\'re in! Do you understand the powers that are at work here? Do you not smell the stench of death that has overtaken this manor? The only reason the both of us are even standing here is the bravery of those who have already fallen--such privilege is lost on anyone else," Althaus snapped back.

His tight grip loosened, bringing his gaze down upon the floor turned rubble. More than scared, he was furious now--he knew that the possibility of his friend being alive was slim, but he held onto that small space of fate left for him.

"You understand now, don\'t you? That man--that monster, Rouge--he leaves only death in his wake. That is the world you were brought into, Ren Nakamura. One where just by virtue of your own birth, he is allowed to trample upon all of these lives before you, all in the same of the so-called "justice" this corrupt kingdom fervently believes," Althaus firmly grasped the young man\'s shoulders as his voice dropped to a low.