Road to Ruisea

❆ ❆ LXVII. CHIRO ❆ ❆

Chiro stumbles and nearly falls on his face.

I am... So tired...

But he knows he can't fall asleep. If he falls asleep, he'll have nothing but nightmares.

And also, if he falls asleep... He might not wake up a third time.

"Gotta stay awake," he mutters to himself, tiredly slapping himself across the cheek a few times. "Get to Kumari and Jae, get out of the cold, then you can sleep all you want..."

He trudges forward, but his step soon falters once again, this time it's not from his own sleepiness. Instead, it's because he slipped — and he knows that the icy ground here tends to be slippery, but he'd been trudging so carefully so far... There must be something different.

And there is.

Because now, there's water.

When the water cascades across the ground, it slowly starts to freeze from the cold. But the water that's in motion, it stays water. And before it freezes, it makes Chiro slip and fall flat on his face.

Where's all this water coming from...?

Chiro tries to listen for the sound of it, and he hears it at the same time he realizes exactly where it is — it's pouring down from the ceiling, lots of rushing little waterfalls all along the cavern.

"Just great," Chiro whines. "Cold plus water... The perfect set up for the sun-based magician!"

He trudges once more, now doubly careful, making sure not to slip and fall. It's good that Chiro's nervous by nature, afraid of getting hurt... Whether he be hurt by nature, or by—

"Alexei?"

Chiro can't believe the name he's calling, but it definitely has to be the prince. There'd been the quickest flash of white hair, of silver buttons on a navy blue uniform... Chiro speeds up best as he can to see if it's really Alexei, as he can use all the company he can get.

He smiles as he rounds a corner and sees that, yes, Alexei is standing right there, back to Chiro.

"Alexei!"

Chiro comes up to Alexei and grabs him by the arm, but Alexei doesn't turn around.

"Huh...? Alexei, hey, it's me, Chiro. Let's go and try to get back to the others."

Alexei turns his head ever so slightly, so that Chiro can just barely see one of his eyes. "You want me to come with you, is that it, Chiro?"

"Y-yeah...?" Chiro replies, but already he can't help the shivers that crawl up his spine, and they're not just from the cold, not anymore. "Yeah. Let's go."

"You want me to come with you to find Kumari and Jae?"

"Yeah..."

"You're sure?"

"Y-yeah!"

"Alright," Alexei says, slowly. "If that's what you want."

Chiro lets out a sigh of relief, but it was a sigh too soon. Alexei finally turns around to face him but when he does Chiro's automatically inclined to let out a horrified gasp instead, because Alexei really, really didn't look like himself anymore.

The long white hair and bright blue eyes remained in place. Or rather... One blue eye. The other eye has been gouged out... An empty black hole where his eyeball should be. As for the rest of his face and body...

Chiro can't bear to look. It's mutilated and stained with black and red liquid, that's for sure...

Alexei smiles but his teeth are sharp and pointed.