Wandering

The fog draped over Elsmort like a funeral shroud.

Horace kicked a loose stone into a bottomless pit as they trekked the winding path through another crumbling causeway. The air tasted like metal, thick with memory.

"You'd think with all these corrupted systems running this deathtrap, we could at least get a minimap," Horace grumbled, swiping his HUD in irritation. "Seriously—three floors' worth of 'glitches,' and we still don't have coordinates on Vanix? That's some quality programming."

Kennard walked slightly ahead, quiet as usual. His modified interface flickered with half-dead code.

"System integrity is collapsing the deeper we move into Elsmort," he said. "Tracking Leroy's signal is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack. But it's still there."

Horace glanced at the faint marker pulsing across Kennard's floating display. "Yeah, yeah. 'He's alive, but maybe not. ''Great. Super reassuring."

Behind them, Celestina trailed in steady silence.

She wasn't as talkative as the two of them. Even when she'd first joined their party a few floors back, she remained as someone who spoke little, moved efficiently, and fought like a ghost. Skilled. Cold. Unshaken.

Yet over these last days of searching, Horace noticed something odd.

Whenever Leroy's signal spiked faintly, she seemed to react before Kennard even called it out.

Her gaze would sharpen. Her breath would still.

Like now.

Another faint flicker pulsed across the corrupted UI.

"There," Kennard pointed ahead. "The signal's a lot stronger."

Celestina's eyes narrowed, focusing on the mist ahead long before the others reacted.

"You always spot it so fast," Horace said casually. "Almost like you know where he is."

Celestina didn't flinch. "Instinct."

"Sure," Horace chuckled, but let it hang. "Instinct for people you've never met?"

She glanced at him. The smallest pause.

"Vanix is our teammate," she said calmly. "That's enough reason."

Horace filed that answer away in his head. Noted.

They walked in silence for a while longer, crossing bridges half-eaten by time, stepping through patches of blackened grass that whispered softly underfoot.

Even Kennard, the quiet one, finally spoke up, his voice measured. "You didn't know him before joining, did you, Celestina?"

"No," she answered simply. "I didn't."

Kennard's eyes flickered with subtle calculation. He never asked things without purpose.

"But you seem oddly... determined. More than most."

Celestina's voice remained steady. "We are a team. Survival demands trust. If we don't find him, we lose strength. Numbers."

Horace raised a brow. "That's a real clinical way to say you care."

For the briefest second, her lips tightened—not into a frown, but almost as if something unfamiliar tugged behind her face.

"I don't know him," she repeated, softer. "But... I feel like I should."

That stopped both men for a second.

Kennard exchanged a glance with Horace.

Horace squinted. "Huh. That sounds... weirdly poetic for you."

Celestina exhaled through her nose, her voice suddenly distant. "You've never felt like that? A person you meet for the first time, but something inside whispers that you've known them longer than your entire life?"

Kennard's expression barely shifted. "That sounds like faulty code. Memory bleed. This entire place feels designed to induce familiarity where none exists."

"Or trauma," Horace added. "The tower feeds off that crap."

Celestina said nothing.

The three moved carefully into a ruined courtyard. Elsmort's towering black arches curled overhead like claws frozen mid-grasp.

Vines twisted along marble statues; faces melted smooth. Wind carried echoes—laughs, whispers, cries—that didn't belong to any living mouth.

Horace shivered. "This whole floor's like a graveyard someone forgot to bury properly."

Kennard stopped suddenly. "Signal spike."

Celestina spoke again, her voice unexpectedly quiet, almost thoughtful. "What was he like? Before all this."

Horace blinked. "Leroy?"

She nodded.

Horace scratched the back of his head. "Stubborn as hell. Insanely good at everything except knowing when to not pick 'Impossible Mode.' Smart. Kind of socially hopeless. Kinda broken in a way that made you want to punch him and hug him at the same time."

Kennard added, "He was the one who always chose the hardest road first. But he carried us through every match before this one."

Celestina absorbed that quietly.

"He sounds…" she began but didn't finish. She didn't seem to have the right word.

"Exhausting?" Horace offered with a smirk.

Celestina shook her head. "...Familiar."

Horace glanced back over his shoulder. "Leroy again?"

"Yes," she said. "About Leroy."

Her voice was calm and measured, but there was something underneath it. Something the others couldn't quite place. Not urgency exactly—more like... longing wrapped in confusion.

Horace raised a brow. "Well, that's new. Didn't think you cared much about our little lost idiot."

"I care because we're risking our lives to find him," Celestina answered evenly. "I'd like to understand who I'm walking into danger for."

Kennard's eyes flicked toward her. Quiet, observing. But his expression was unreadable.

Horace chuckled, but there was a faint edge to it. "You've fought beside us for what—four floors now? And only now you're getting curious?"

Her gaze didn't waver. "It didn't matter before. Now it does."

Horace studied her face, but she offered nothing more. No smile, no defensiveness. Just that cool, controlled tone.

"Alright then," he said, his voice losing some of its teasing edge, turning more genuine. "What do you want to know?"

Celestina looked forward into the fog, as if visualizing the man they searched for. She spoke softly.

"What made him choose this? Impossible Mode. The others could have played it safe. But he… he chose this."

Kennard answered first. "Because that's who he was. Leroy always chose the hardest route. Not because he was arrogant—though sometimes he was—but because he didn't know how to live any other way."

Horace nodded. "He was obsessed with being the best. 'The Master,' they used to call him. Every game, every challenge—hardest setting, every time."

A slight smile crept at the edge of his lips. "You could put him in front of a death trap labeled 'Certain Doom,' and he'd say, 'Challenge accepted.' Dumb as hell, but damn if it wasn't inspiring."

Celestina's brows furrowed slightly, like she was piecing something together inside her head. "So… he was ambitious."

Kennard's voice grew softer, more thoughtful. "Not just ambition. It was… penance, too."

That caught her attention. "Penance?"

"He carried guilt," Kennard continued. "From things that happened long before this game. Things he never talked about directly. But you could feel it. He played to punish himself as much as he did to win."

Celestina absorbed that. She walked in silence for a few steps before speaking again, her voice more distant now.

"That explains the strength. But not…" She hesitated. "Not the sadness I sense around him."

Horace frowned slightly. "You sense sadness around him?"

Her lips tightened. Just a fraction. As if she was realizing she'd said more than she intended.

Kennard narrowed his eyes subtly. "You've never even met him."

"I haven't," she admitted. "And yet… something about him feels…"

She trailed off.

Horace couldn't help himself. "Familiar, is it, again?"

The word lingered heavily in the fog.

Celestina didn't answer.

Instead, she exhaled, steadying herself as if searching for words that didn't exist. "It's as if my mind recognizes him before I do."

Kennard's voice grew colder. Cautious. "That's… not normal."

Celestina nodded. "I know."

Horace exchanged a glance with Kennard, his joking demeanor thinning fast.

"Look, I'm not trying to be a dick here," Horace said slowly, "but it kind of sounds like you know more than you're telling."

"I don't," she answered flatly.

"You're not lying," Kennard said carefully. "But you're not entirely truthful either."

Celestina looked ahead, avoiding their gazes. "I feel a... pull toward him. That's all I can explain."

The silence stretched long.

Kennard's brows furrowed deeply now. His voice was almost a whisper. "This tower messes with memories. With souls. With time."

Horace added under his breath, "Maybe this place tangled your fates before you even entered."

Neither of them said it outright.

But the thought hovered, heavy and electric:

"Did something happen between her and Leroy that even she doesn't remember?"

Celestina stopped walking.

For a brief moment, her voice grew fragile. Uncertain.

"Is he… someone worth finding?"

Kennard didn't hesitate. "Yes."

Horace smiled faintly. "Always was. Even when we wanted to kick his ass."

The corrupted interface blinked violently ahead of them.

<>

"He's close," Kennard said.

Celestina's fingers twitched toward her blade, not out of fear—but out of something more complicated.

And they moved forward.

Toward him.