A shiver went down my spine, the hairs rising along my body once again. Even just part of his title unsettled me to my very core, as if a pair of distant eyes had settled on my shoulders, watching, waiting, and plotting. "The Doomsayer?" Where have I heard that before?
Johnny let out another puff. "The slumbering, indisposed leader of the Sillianists."
Then it hit me like a wave as I thought back to the books I had read. Once, and more popularly known as the Sage of Seven Lanterns, his title changed upon starting Sillianism almost three hundred years ago, the most recently formed of all orthodox religions. A vivid depiction of his final sighting coalesced in my mind.
On the ancient, yellowed pages, a flowing figure in black and purple robes floated over a mountain. The sun —or as I had thought at the time, the moon— hung in the sky, a ball of brilliant white flames framing him in a serene glow. His visage was strange and distorted, with what looked like six arms cradling six purple blazing balls of fire extending from his back. In his right hand he held the crook of an ancient shepherd. His eyes were blazing with amethyst light flecked with black, his face warped into a sorrowful frown.
"The… Sage of Seven Lanterns? How is he…"
"Alive?" Johnny grimaced as he strode over to me, withdrawing some simple medical supplies from his coat. He quickly wrapped my wound before exiting the alley, rejoining the tumult of the streets. "He's an Icon holder, and a mythological one at that. Anything is possible."
"What's going to happen to the current leader then?"
"The Cacophonous Nimblewright will just submit… and then a holy war may truly begin in earnest." He took a long drag, flagging a car to take us to the train station. With a dejected look, he put it out, tossing the butt in a nearby trashcan with inhuman precision.
I shuddered at the mere thought of a holy war. Always brewing, even occurring on smaller scales such as the attack today… but never in the public lens. We clambered in a small, sleek, four-seater and Johnny tossed him a few coins to take us to the station. The road we traveled this time was between two districts, between the Brilliance and their ally, the Resonance Collective.
We rode along the edge of a canal, and the stark contrast between the two fascinated me. The buildings in the Collective's quarter were all made of simple dark brown wood and an off-white stucco, with moss, vines and greenery coating almost every surface. They sat on tiny stone-brick-walled islands, keeping them above the serene turquoise waters that splashed at their gardens.
People drifted from place to place on small canoes, leisurely paddling to and fro. Kids swam and laughed, some jumped from building to building, be it from their gabled roofs or from their small docks. Thick cables dangled between the houses, some with laundry, some were simply used to zipline down the street a short distance. A frown formed on my face as I could almost imagine my mother, smiling on the dock and waving at me.
I rolled down the window, listening to the soft sound of wind chimes and tolling bells. It was peaceful, the serenity of it all calming my anxious heart. A deep breath of crisp flowing air filled my lungs, and I rolled up the window as I exhaled.
"How's the Detective's relationship with the Collective?" A distant longing had taken root in my heart for that peace. Johnny stared out the window for a while, as if he hadn't heard me. "Johnny...?"
"Hm? Sorry." He twiddled a cigarette, wrenching his eyes away with obvious difficulty. "He's favored by their association but… he doesn't like being there."
I frowned, confused. "Why?"
"It's a fantasy too good to be true. Idyllic to a fault." He paused, as if quoting. "'It deludes you to the reality of the world, teaching the insipid belief that people— monsters, are capable of change.'"
"It's intoxicating…" I murmured, staring back out the window, transfixed.
Johnny shifted in his seat behind me, his voice now making it seem that he was facing away. "If that's what you want, I won't stop you."
I was taken aback, my words catching in my throat. "What?"
"To stay. We can stop the car."
"I…" I focused on Johnny's gray eyes, imagining my mom on that dock once more. That didn't have to remain a fantasy. "No, I've already come this far."
"Good." He nodded. "Just remember that nobody can force you to take this journey, and nobody will blame you for backing down."
I nodded, remembering what he had said before I chased the Sillianist, emphasizing my right to choose. "I wouldn't dare to waste this chance." A deep breath filled my lungs, and I closed my eyes, determined not to give the Collective a single other look, not until I could see it with my mom. Slowly, my weary body fell into a distant dream.
Yet, the space before my eyes wasn't exactly black. It was, but it wasn't. There was the grounded feeling of something beneath my feet, and… and something on the horizon. In the never-ending lightless void, a subtle pinprick of white light burgeoned to life, slowly growing closer. I looked down at my body, and found it just as it was in reality, scraped and soiled, but intact.
My heart hammered in my ears, my breathing quick and short as I frantically flailed, looking for any landmark. With some form of something beneath my feet, I tried to run, yet with nothing in sight to mark my location, it felt as if I was marching in place, the light growing closer and closer.
It smelled like nothing, a deafening absence of sound roaring in my ears. My limbs and clothes moved through empty space, no wind to even provide resistance. An overwhelming sense of inevitability washed over me, the burden of my inability to resist even a little seeping out in the form of sweat.
My heartbeats were the only measure of time in this lightless abyss, the only indicator that events still flowed one after another. One, two, three… I took deep breaths, cursing as they did nothing to calm my pounding heart. Only then did I realize how much Johnny had truly been helping. I couldn't help but laugh to myself, the sound echoing into the nothingness.
Glancing down at my neck, relief coursed through me. No streaks. The light revealed a strange flowing figure. Like an ethereal specter, it slowly drifted toward me, six white fireballs suspended behind its back in a ring. In its hand was a long, black wooden crook, gnarled and worn. Behind the figure was an endless precession; a single-file line of ghastly luminescent people and monsters, stretching into the infinite darkness.