The name practically glowed as Aaron stepped closer and closer to the doorway.
Its small handle began to turn, gently opening a crack in the entryway.
Aaron furrowed his brow as a bright light spilled out of the crack, accompanied by the sound of child cries.
Someone's crying?
He reached his hand out towards the door, feeling a frigid chill run down his spine as he was sucked into the door.
W-What the!?
The void around him collapsed as he fell through the space without any sense of direction.
Around him, panels of light gradually came together, like a painting taking shape beneath a master's hand, layer by layer.
Colors filled the terrain, bringing life to the empty world that now burst with vitality.
Aaron watched as the movement halted, converging on a small bedroom where a woman lay on a bed, breathing heavily.
A baby's cries could be heard across the room, with a nurse holding the child carefully.
Where am I?
He looked around the chamber, but he noticed nothing unusual other than the scene before him.
I entered the door that had Eleanor's name on it and ended up here…?
His thoughts were muddled with feelings of sadness building up within him for an unexplainable reason.
These feelings…
As he wrestled with the emotions storming inside him, he suddenly heard a scream, forcing his vision to turn towards the blonde-haired mother in the bed.
She shook uncontrollably, crimson tears dripping down her cheeks, blooming across the white fabric beneath her like roses scattered over winter frost.
Frozen in place, the nurse clutched the child as if torn between the need to protect it and the urge to help the bleeding mother.
Aaron widened his eyes, running over to help the seizing woman; however, as he reached out to touch her, his hand passed right through her.
He tried again and again to no avail, watching in terror as he was unable to do anything for the woman.
Emotions swelled deep within him as an unexplainable sense of dread filled his mind.
The woman's body began to expand like a balloon, growing larger and larger by the second.
One moment later, a ghastly, spine-chilling explosion of blood and skin burst through the room, covering every surface in her remains.
Aaron fell to the floor, gagging profusely as disgust welled up in his stomach and his thoughts blurred together in a putrid combination.
S-She was cursed…
He vomited onto the floor, but then the world crumbled again, reverting to a black void, with Aaron's body falling through the dimensionless space that warped his perspective.
Nausea gripped Aaron as the darkness enveloped him, forming a new scene which frightened him just as much as the previous one.
Blood-soaked gravel lay beneath his feet, with screams echoing through the city that emerged around him.
I-Is this Sea Fallen…?
Thick black smoke filled his lungs, causing him to cough again and again until blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.
I couldn't touch that woman, but the air can poison me?
Flashes of the woman's last moments appeared in his mind, forcing him to gag again before he regained his composure.
From across the street, he heard a young girl calling to a group of children to follow her as she ran through the rubble covering the ground.
Furrowing his brow, Aaron followed them, carefully treading through the burning buildings, and eventually arriving at a small crevice that led to a bunker.
He noticed a familiar face in the crowd, with her blonde hair and fair skin marked by blood and dirt.
Standing next to her was a girl who looked to be the same age as her but was slightly taller.
She ushered Eleanor into the bunker, whispering something that he couldn't hear from a distance.
Aaron watched curiously before noticing an unusual object behind the two girls.
T-Thats a flame grenade!
His jaw fell open as he widened his eyes in terror, realizing what would come next.
Words forced their way to the surface, yet were trapped in his throat.
He was just a spectator and observer forced to watch no matter the situation.
"BOOM!"
Light burst out of the explosive, blinding him for a moment, as a gut-wrenching scream sounded from ahead of him.
Opening his eyes, he watched as the girl who, just moments ago, was chatting with Eleanor burned in pure agony on the floor.
Her screams echoed through his mind, sending waves of heart-numbing despair right to his core.
Aaron ran as fast as he could towards her, but the distance between them only grew larger as the space contracted and twisted, repeating the scene again and again.
Each time, he was forced to watch in horror as the young girl, once full of life, burned to nothing but bones with Eleanor's screams resounding in the distance.
This is too much.
Too far.
Why did it have to happen?
Tears fell from Aaron's eyes as darkness gripped his form, dragging him deeper into despair.
He want to scream, to run, to do anything. But all he could do is watch. Indefinitely.
After a moment, the world began to deconstruct again, ripping him back into the void that slowly erased his sanity.
N-No more… Please… No more…
Light once again burst forth, covering his vision and forming a new scene, but this time, something strange happened.
Turquoise sparkles blurred his eyes, clouding his view of the room he was in, only allowing sound to penetrate the barrier.
He heard Eleanor's calm voice, completely different from the scene before.
She was speaking in a tone of curiosity, with the only thing Aaron could see being a long, blurred metal object within her hand.
What is that…?
He furrowed his brow in confusion when the scene suddenly spasmed for a moment before changing to a different area.
This time, he was in a large cathedral watching Eleanor speak to an older man dressed in a priest's attire.
"Father Godrick, why are you here?"
Her voice mended Aaron's fractured mind, calming the despair that had consumed him only moments before.
The two figures conversed for a moment as Aaron began to think deeply about the situation.
She looks the same as when I met her but somethings different…
He scratched the back of his head before sighing to himself and turning his attention back to the conversation.
Eleanor had started to walk away, mumbling something barely audible under her breath.
"If only he weren't so empty-headed, he would've remembered that to have a conversation, two people have to speak…"
Aaron furrowed his brow and thought to himself quietly.
I hope she isn't talking about me…
Shrugging off the thought, he continued after the girl who wandered the streets, handing out bread from a large bag she carried around.
As the hours passed, she gradually finished her handouts, passing a girl that Aaron recognized well.
Is that Alice?
Her appearance was more rugged, with dirt caking her face and tattered clothing that reflected poverty.
She beamed with happiness as Eleanor handed her a piece of bread, carefully examining it before running away.
The sun had begun to set, with the blonde-haired Eleanor beginning her way back to the cathedral, quietly whistling to herself.
Watching her wander the back alleys of the city, a thought occurred to Aaron suddenly that worried him deeply.
If this world were designed to stimulate her traumas, then why hasn't anything bad happened?
He stopped his walk, turning towards a dark corner of the road that Eleanor walked down.
Standing in the shadows was a burly man holding a bag in his hands.
Aaron merely looked down at the ground, finally accepting his role as a 'spectator'.
Why does it have to happen again and again? She experienced so many terrible things, yet still smiled when handing out bread, laughed at my unfunny jokes…
The sapphire ring upon Aaron's index finger began to glow lightly, wrapping his finger in turquoise sparks as he continued to think.
I wish she could remember something happy instead of this… this nightmare…
Rumbling shook the ground as cracks appeared in the sky, ruining the carefully constructed scene.
Aaron looked down at his hand as a vibrating, stinging feeling erupted from his index finger with bursting blue tendrils slamming into the barriers of the illusion.
The figures of Eleanor and her kidnapper froze with time, seemingly stopping as a turquoise hue took over the space.
Fresh light illuminated the scene, shattering the memory completely, bringing Aaron back to the void with a warm breeze blowing in.
Unlike before, no new scenery formed out of the darkness.
Instead, he found himself standing inside a white, spherical room, with a small child sitting in the middle, sobbing quietly.
Her entire body was shaking as if she were freezing, with her blonde hair gently tied back behind her.
Aaron recognized the girl immediately, before looking down at the glowing ring at his side.
W-What did it do?
The color of the ring had changed from turquoise-blue to a light pink similar to the creature he had met before.
He turned his gaze from his hand to Eleanor, walking over with steady steps and gently tapping her on the shoulder.
She looked up at him with glistening gray eyes, not letting out a word.
"What do you think? Let's go see something better."
Aaron watched the girl nod slowly, wiping her eyes and standing up.
The black void began to reform as the two figures stood side by side, and a new scene formed, yet, this time, Aaron knew, it would be a happy memory.