Chapter Text
The air sat think and damp, pushing down on an empty chest. Eyes slowly pried themselves open, as if they were ripping open skin its self to see. Shadows along the walls sat still, like they had rusted to the stone that curved from the floor. An arm moved, aching and foreign, as if it was sewn on from another body.
The mind reached uncomfortably to an intangible memory. Names, faces, lives, all empty, only the fragmented feelings remaining. A faint echo of a voice gurgled from the past, no discernable words, only the sound of choking and drowning.
A low hum vibrated the stone below, pulsing through the chest and up into the ribcage. Fingers slowly descended and traced along trails of dust across the floor. Something had been here, neither natural nor fully alive. It was vast. It was lost.
The cave, or tomb, understood there was something yet to come. It stretched wide above, stalactites hung with droplets of water cascading across them, making them slick to the touch. Along the walls murals were plastered, barely illuminated by cracks of light. Four faces stared engraved in rock. One smiled with golden eyes, one stern and bronze, one serene with a blue tint, and one pale and contemplative all reached towards each other. Veins of color pulsed within each of them.
Legs stumbled forward, the faces were repeated across the walls. A strange tug pulled at the chest, as if the faces were trying to call out from the darkened cave walls. Deeper within, light slanted through cracks across the walls. It glistened on a symbol carved deeply into the stone. Four interlocking circles, all of different colors, each with lines flowing outward like a liquid.
Tears ran unbidden, a pounding sharp ache spread throughout the body as breathing quickened. Hands were shoved into the stone, trying to tear it open. Fingernails split, cracking and grinding against the impenetrable floor. Blood welled and began to run, collecting in pools across the floor.
Then came ecstasy, inhuman feelings of joy spread throughout the body. The cave sat brighter, while the pools of blood crawled along the stone, forming into a large sigil. Happiness. It felt simple, yet it ached for more.
Why wasn't it enough?
Hatred began to flow through the veins as the sigil contorted and shifted into a new shape. Hands shot into stone, cracking upon impact. It wasn't enough. It shot back into the stone again and again until the knuckles were coated in blood. Feeling disappeared, only the overpowering anger remained.
Not good enough.
The pounding stopped, as the body began to fall. It hit the stone hard, as the sigil continued to shift. The mind began to reflect in on its self, and the hatred slowly turned inwards. It wasn't the world that wasn't good enough, it was the mind its self. The pain returned, but was welcomed. It began to become a reminder of inferiority. Comfort came from the hatred and pain, cradling the rest of the body as it seemed to fall into the ground.
It wasn't long enough.
Time seemed to move faster, the light on the cave flashing by. The body remained still as the sigil began to change again. The world seemed to go by in an instant, yet also too slowly. What had happened across time was shortened to a mere moment that stretched on forever. Why would they body move? What was the point? It would be too difficult anyway, so it continued to lay.
Then it became enough.
The eyes opened, now aware. The body sat up as he looked down at his own arms. It was his body. He stood, looking down at what once was the sigil of blood, though it had now changed. It was a name.
Vitus
He whispered it aloud, and a pulse shot from the stone, ringing in his ears in rhythm like a heartbeat.
His memory flickered: a vastness, islands floating on a sea of plasma, energy flowing through veins that were not his, yet a part of something infinitely larger than himself.
Something ancient stirred within the stone, a pulse of something long left dormant. Something remembered.
And now, Vitus remembered.