Order Made

Hope is a fluttering of life,

Noisy, demanding, urgent,

Refusing to give up,

But broken all the same.

.

Hope is a young man,

Nurturing, loving, tender,

Caring, healing, and helping,

Sharing his warmth.

.

Hope is a baby bird,

An infant fallen from its home,

Abandoned and left to die

Cold, forgotten, and alone.

.

In silence hope sleeps,

Drifting away through time and space,

The little bird exhales its last breath,

And is finally at peace.

- LOVE:less act 3 -.

...

September 24th. Genf – Nion's apartment, three days after the incident

A cool autumn breeze slipped through the slightly open window, brushing against Nion's pale face and stirring the silver of her hair. The warmth of the prior week was gone, either stolen by shifting seasons or buried beneath the city's foundations. Outside, Genf's skyline spread in a dazzling vista of soaring towers and neon-lit avenues, though her room itself remained hushed and still. She lived high above the bustling streets in a sleek skyscraper, the broad window offering a panoramic view of the city below. The distant outline of the Keepers' Headquarters—an imposing structure of glass and metal—rose from the urban sprawl, its distinctive silhouette catching the last glow of sunset and reflecting it back in shimmering shades of orange and pink.

Nion slowly opened her eyes, trying to place herself. After a few seconds, the haze in her vision lifted, and she recognized the familiar shape of her apartment's ceiling, the comforting smell of home settling her nerves. She lay on her bed but remembered nothing of how she had gotten here.

Attempting to stretch, she noticed a peculiar stiffness in her arms. A tingling spread through her hands up to her shoulders. Both arms were encased in layers of white bandages. Surprised, she decided to free one arm to see why. It took her minutes to locate a metal clip beneath her wrist, which she removed with her mouth. The thick layers of bandage rolled away slowly, but the deeper she went, the more they stuck to her skin, tugging painfully as if they had fused with the wound. Despite the discomfort, Nion kept removing them.

At last, the bandages came off completely. The moment she flexed her fingers, warm blood welled from the burns, tracing thin rivulets down her skin. She pressed the discarded bandages against the wounds, attempting to stifle the slow, sticky flow. Sitting motionless, she watched as crimson seeped between her fingers, falling in quiet, rhythmic droplets—like rainwater sliding from the edge of a branch after a storm. Each soft pat against the white sheets produced a muted, delicate sound, eerily similar to water splattering on paper. With every drop, echoes of her mission flickered through her mind—distant, blurred, like an old recording playing in fragments. The sensation sent a shudder down her spine. Unable to bear the sight any longer, she turned away from the blood, fixing her gaze on the stark white wall ahead, as if its emptiness might help her pull the missing pieces of her memory back into place.

Something seemed off about that wall, as though a subtle distortion was hiding in its plain color. A headache pulsed in her skull, intensifying as she tried to recall the recent past. As she stared, her vision tunneled, as if the neutral shade was morphing into shifting light and pushing back the darkness in her mind. Slow and relentless, that darkness began swallowing the last rays inside her thoughts, reminding her of the conversation she shared with Seànn in the forest, the flickers of their talk growing louder and then dissolving again.

Fire came next, blazing through her memories with a surge of rage. Her body trembled with the urge to exact a dreadful violence on the one who had caused such harm and regret—the one she despised enough to wish upon him the most merciless death. Her face twisted as if she wore the grin of a murderer seconds before destroying his victim. Her eyes lit with a crazed glimmer, like burning matches on the verge of igniting a raging inferno. She clenched her unbandaged arm, feeding off the flash of pain, allowing her imagination to teeter on the edge of horrid fantasies. Memories splintered under the heat of her hatred, and she felt her body burn with a feverish intensity, on the brink of passing out.

A distant voice broke through: "Nionel… Where are you…" The darkness overcame whatever light she'd clung to, and she felt her blood soaking into the blanket beneath her. Her mind lost its grip on reality as the swirl of colors bent and warped into what looked like a smear of vivid ash. "Who are you..." she whispered, then closed her eyes.

Weakness claimed her as blood continued to drain from her arm. Reality grew faint, the wall slowly reverting to a plain white. Sunbeams through the apartment window had never moved; it was all in her head. In truth, her injuries told the story: her arms were severely burned by prolonged exposure to fire. Even the slightest motion renewed the bleeding, painting the bed in deep reds. Alarmed by her worsening condition, she pressed the spent bandages more firmly, stanching the blood and trying to catch her breath.

She could do little else; she was too weary to wash the blood away. Her limbs felt weighted, as though she hadn't rested in days. With a pounding headache, aching muscles, and raw, stinging eyes, she managed only to push the pillow aside and pull herself into a sitting position on the bed, hoping the dizziness would pass.

Sunlight slanted into the room from the late afternoon sky. The apartment's ceiling arched higher than most, lending an airy, expansive feel to the space. Soft, recessed lighting along the walls and ceiling highlighted the smooth, minimalistic surfaces—an aesthetic choice that complemented the forward-thinking architecture of the building. In front of the window, a vase of purple roses rested on a slender metal table, their long, lean stems swaying gently in the breeze. Their petals curled delicately, performing an intimate ballet of splendor and fragility against the backdrop of the darkening sky. The fading light filtered into the room, throwing patterns of gold and crimson across the polished floor, each subtle shift in the sunset painting a new stroke of color across the scene.

As twilight deepened, the subdued hum of the city drifted upward, mingling with the mechanical whir of climate controls somewhere within the walls. Despite the advanced technology woven into every corner of the skyscraper—touch-sensitive panels for lighting, near-silent ventilation systems, and automated curtains—the apartment itself was quiet, suspended in the moment between day and night. The roses trembled again with the wind, their fragrance carrying hints of sweet earth and something faintly floral, a gentle reminder of the world outside these walls. The gentle hush of the breeze and the soft glow of the descending sun cast the room in warm, serene shades, a peaceful contrast to the turmoil that had recently defined Nion's life.

Soft footsteps approached from the hallway, pausing at her door. "The patient has third-degree burns," a woman's voice explained from just outside.

"I'm not fully clear on the severity of that condition," Seànn replied. "Could you elaborate on what that means?"

"Certainly, madam. Third-degree burns destroy the skin through its entire depth, sometimes extending into deeper tissues. Typically, this occurs when someone is trapped in a fire for an extended period. Right now, the patient must rest and move as little as possible. May I ask if you're a family member?"

"I am her sup..." She paused, then corrected herself. "I am her close friend, we work together."

The nurse reviewed Nion's patient chart before explaining the extent of her injuries and the procedures carried out. "The patient underwent extensive treatment, including skin grafts for the burned areas, splints for both hands to ensure proper healing, and specialized creams to accelerate tissue regeneration." She exhaled lightly, adjusting the device in her grip. "Additionally, both of her arms were fractured upon arrival, her legs suffered severe burns, and some of her augmentations had to be temporarily removed. Due to this, she required a new augmentation surgery, which was completed successfully. However, it will take time for her body to adjust to the modifications."

The nurse's gaze shifted from the chart to Seànn, her tone firm. "Please ensure she does not tamper with her wounds or attempt to change the bandages on her own. Doing so could lead to infection or significantly delay the healing process. She will need at least two to three weeks for her body to fully recover before any strenuous movement is permitted."

"Understood. Thank you for your efforts," Seànn acknowledged politely.

"You're most welcome, madam." The nurse replied.

Another set of footsteps drew nearer—more than two people, heavier steps. The distinct sound of boots against polished floors signaled authority before a calm voice interrupted the stillness.

"Sir Aleksithimia, it's an honor to meet you." The nurse bowed.

"Good evening, everyone," Aleksithimia replied in a pleasant tone. "Thank you all for your hard work." He addressed the nurse with a brief nod before turning to Seànn, extending a firm handshake.

"Seconda, how is she—" His words cut off abruptly. The weight in the room shifted as he stepped closer, the air thick with unspoken tension. Nion could hear his movement, measured and deliberate as if he had noticed something unexpected.

"What happened to your face?" he asked Seànn, his voice discreet but edged with concern.

"Work accident," Seànn said, turning away slightly. "Nothing more than that."

"This is the first time I've seen a scar on your face. Does it have anything to do with our previous discussion?" He reached out as though to touch her scar. "Does he or she have a name?"

Seànn caught his hand, gently guiding it down. "No," she politely replied, the subtle shift in her tone signaling that the topic was closed.

"I see… you must have had a rough time dealing with whoever did that," Aleksithimia said thoughtfully.

"Yeah... We can say that." Seànn gave a shallow smile, one that held more exhaustion than reassurance.

Changing the subject, Aleksithimia spoke to the nurse, inquiring about Nion's condition. Once informed, Seànn made her exit. "Now that you're here, I'll leave. Tell her she should contact me when she wakes."

Aleksithimia asked, "Why not tell me the message?"

"With respect, it's private," Seànn declined, then left with a polite farewell. Moments later, Nion heard the door open and recognized Aleksithimia's footsteps approaching her bed.

She turned her head weakly to greet him, still covered in blood. "Hi…" she managed, forcing a faint smile.

After her final word left her lips, Nion's body began to tilt, slowly succumbing to gravity like a sandbag thrown from a sinking vessel. Her vision blurred at the edges, sucked into an abyss of desolation. Somewhere in the distance, she heard Aleksithimia's voice, urgent yet distant, as if he were calling from the other side of a vast ocean. She felt nothing as her body collapsed, numbed beyond recognition, her senses stripped away in a single, unforgiving instant.

She plunged into a void where everything was swallowed by a paralyzing emptiness. It consumed sound, light, and thought—leaving behind nothing but a vast, suffocating stillness. A place neither of death nor of life, where echoes murmured from the unseen depths, like faint whispers carried by an eternal wind. Cold, unbearable, absolute. The wind was howling, circling like a hungry predator, and for the first time, she realized she was completely, utterly alone.

No matter how much she tried to cry out—to reach for Aleksithimia, for anyone—her voice refused to come. Silence stretched, thick and unrelenting. There was no warmth, no trace of the sun she had felt earlier against her skin. As time passed, the abyss began filling with voices. Countless, overlapping voices screaming, sobbing, shouting over one another. Familiar and unfamiliar. Disjointed. It was the same disorienting sensation she had felt in the forest after removing her Kanjōga, the same nauseating whirlwind that had engulfed her on the wall.

The cacophony swelled, an unbearable static surging through her skull until it was all she could hear. A relentless tide of fragmented memories—memories that were not her own. It was like listening to a thousand shattered lives, distorted and compressed into a single piercing shriek. Her muscles were cramped. Unable to move, Nion sat paralyzed in the overwhelming darkness. Desperate, she clamped her hands over her ears like a frightened child trying to block out the monstrous world. But the voices seeped through, pressing against her skull, writhing in her mind like an infestation of insects. She squeezed her eyes shut, clinging to the only sensation she had left—the faint warmth inside her chest, a fragile ember keeping her from collapsing into nothingness.

But it was slipping. Her heartbeats slowed, stretching further apart, each one an electric shock that reverberated through her weightless body. They felt like a ball thrown against the ground—bouncing once, twice, but each time rising slower, higher, further from reach. Then, in an instant, gravity ceased to exist.

She floated, untethered, lost in a void that no longer felt like a prison but something else, a new sensation she hadn't experienced yet. The air filled with warmth, replacing the icy cold that had wrapped around her. Her descent halted, reversed. A force—gentle but absolute—began pulling her upward. The abyss lost its grip on her. A light appeared.

It flickered at first, a faint glow in the immeasurable darkness, but it grew stronger, filling the space around her with a radiance so intense she could barely keep her eyes open. The warmth surged through her, washing away the agony, the nausea, the dissonance of voices. Her body felt weightless yet whole as if all her injuries had never existed. Her breath no longer felt strained. Everything was... peaceful.

A familiar scent drifted into her senses. A bakery. The rich, delicate fragrance of freshly baked bread and pastries. It clung to the air like nostalgia itself, wrapping around her like an old memory she had long since forgotten.

There was no sky. No horizon. Just an infinite expanse of golden white stretching beyond comprehension. It was neither solid nor empty—somewhere in between, like an ocean of light, fluid and endless. In the distance, the laughter of children rang out, innocent and melodic, as if a classroom full of young souls were playing, their joy echoing like a memory untouched by time. It was serenity, unlike anything she had ever known. And yet, it felt familiar.

A warmth-like gentle hand cradled her, lifting her into the air. It was as if she had returned to a place she had once belonged, a place where nothing could hurt her. A place where she was safe. Protected.

Then, a voice. Soft, distant. A woman's voice, fragmented by the veil between worlds.

"M… y… dear… ch…ild… I… love… y…ou…"

The words were garbled, fading in and out as if the person speaking was moving closer yet somehow drifting away at the same time.

Nion's lips parted. "Who are you?" she asked, voice light as air. "Am I… dead?"

The voice did not answer immediately. She was still alone, floating in the infinity of light. But she did not feel afraid. For the first time in a long time, she felt something close to peace, but peace is not meant to last.

A shift in the air sent a shiver down her spine. A presence behind her. The warmth that had held her began to wane.

A new voice—male, low, ragged, exhaling unevenly as though speaking between labored breaths—began to whisper at her back.

"L…eft… O…ut… Crimson bloo…d… In E…rror… Eter…nity… Exc…eeded… Y…ou Negle…cted… Lonesome… At Fault… Rev…enge…"

The words slithered into her ears, wrapping around her mind like chains. The light ahead flickered. A sinking sensation pulled at her, dragging her down.

Nion's breath hitched. "Who are you? What do you want from me?"

The whispering ignored her questions and continued, its cadence growing erratic, creeping into hysteria. The comforting warmth had vanished entirely, replaced by a frigid void that sent ice through her veins.

Then, another voice. Closer. Harsher.

"To Blame! Guilty! You Incapable! Isolated! Afraid! Frustrated! Helpless! ALONE!!!"

The weight of the voices pressed against her like invisible hands, shoving her downward. The golden expanse was disappearing, its brilliance shrinking into a mere glimmer at the top of an ever-deepening chasm.

A bitter taste filled her mouth.

"No—NO! Please, I don't want to go back there!" Nion reached, arm outstretched, grasping for the vanishing light.

The abyss screamed back.

"You Sacrificed Mother! Ritual Hell! Emptiness! Jealousy! Freedom! Madness! Hurt, You Apart! Unforgiven! Weak! YOU ARE ALONE!!!"

Thousands of voices merged into one, an unholy crescendo of condemnation. The light above flickered violently, and for the briefest second, she swore she heard someone sobbing.

"I am sorry… I am so sorry…" The voice was different.

A man's voice, distant yet heartbreakingly near.

Nion's fingers curled. "Sorry for what? Who are you?"

The chasm deepened, the light now barely a sliver in the abyss.

"Nionel…" The male voice trembled. "What did I do to you…"

She gasped. "I don't understand… who—"

"It should not have happened like this…" The sorrow was palpable. "Please… don't leave me behind… Please never—"

Then, silence, followed by an ear-shattering roar.

"DESPERATE! FORSAKEN! YOU DESTROYED! YOU ABANDONED!"

The voices shattered her mind like glass crushed beneath a hammer.

"Get out of my head!" she screamed, raw and desperate, forcing all the chaos into silence.

For a moment, there was nothing. Then, a new voice. A woman's voice. Soft. Weeping.

"I am so sorry…"

Nion's breath stilled. "Sorry for what…?"

"I am sorry I could not protect you, my child - Nothing of this is your fault." The voice gently whispered.

"Mother...? Is that you?!" Nion's voice tore through the emptiness, raw with desperation.

A pause. Then, the tender voice returned, barely a whisper.

"I will always be... with you."

The words wrapped around her like a fading embrace.

"Wait—wait!" Nion reached out, grasping at nothing.

The last rays of light flickered—then vanished.

The darkness began swallowing her whole.

"Please! Don't let me go!" She screamed into the abyss, her voice breaking with the weight of terror, pleading for the warmth not to abandon her.

But the warmth faded. The light receded, slipping from her grasp like grains of sand through trembling fingers. Cold crept in, slow and merciless, as crystal tears welled in her eyes. They streamed down her face, leaving behind faint, glistening trails against the encroaching darkness.

"Why is this happening...?" Her voice quivered, directed toward the vanishing sliver of light above as she plunged downward into the unknown.

Then, the world turned red and black.

The sensation of falling was replaced by a sudden, suffocating pressure—an impact that sent her reeling into a viscous abyss. Thick, hot liquid engulfed her, filling her lungs the moment she gasped in shock. She tried to cough, to breathe, but the substance poured into her mouth, coating her tongue with the metallic tang of blood.

A violent tremor overtook her body, seizures ripping through her muscles as her limbs flailed wildly. Panic surged through her veins as she struggled, desperate to surface, but the more she fought, the heavier she became, sinking further into the abyss.

The voices returned.

Not whispers. Not fragmented murmurs. But an eruption—an entire arena of voices screaming, howling, gnashing like a pack of ravenous hounds.

"DESPERATE! VULNERABLE! PARALYZED! WORTHLESS! POWERLESS! USELESS! UNFORGIVABLE!"

The words crashed against her, a deafening tidal wave of condemnation. Their sound bent and twisted, distorting into something inhuman, overlapping until they became a single, suffocating roar. A screeching white noise flooded her skull, drilling into her mind like jagged shards of glass.

Her vision blurred. Her lungs burned. Her body convulsed as her arms reached out—desperately, blindly—searching for something, anything, to hold onto. But there was nothing. No warmth. No light. No saving hand to pull her from the abyss.

And then—silence.

Or perhaps she had simply lost the ability to hear.

A voice—her own—echoed softly through the void, carrying a haunting promise: "You can always... start over..."

A second voice, eerily identical, followed, whispering, "Yes... you will be reborn... forever..."

But then, the very essence of her being began to unravel. With every heartbeat, her pulse weakened, fading into the silence of inevitable surrender. Her body, once vibrant with defiant life, sank slowly into the yawning abyss—a void that opened like a dark, infinite wound, ready to consume every last trace of her.

In that agonizing final moment, Nion closed her eyes, her thoughts dissolving into memories of lost hope and unfulfilled dreams. And in the deep, sorrowful stillness of the void, she waited—alone, as the darkness swallowed her whole.