The sight that came after was unexpected to say the least. Cal speculated that the specks could have done anything. Whether it was closing the distance between them or vanishing altogether, Cal thought that the illusory lights would move from where they currently were.
What he did not expect was for them to start multiplying.
The specks in the sky grew in number, covering the blackness of the night in abundance. At first, the multiplication was subtle. One light became two, two became four, each new wisp budding from nothing, like a thought half-formed and then finished
Their glow and opulence began to sharpen more and more as they duplicated, less like stars and more like watching eyes. They drifted with no shared pattern, yet Cal felt an order beneath the chaos, an unspoken intent guiding their spread. Wherever his gaze settled, more appeared, as if his attention itself invited them closer.
A weight pressed behind his eyes.
They're responding! And they're definitely going to do something! I need to get us away from here as soon as possible!
Vincent was also staring at the sight, his eyes widening slowly and his mouth parted in awe. Cal noticed the slight anxiety in his eyes and knew whatever was to unfold would not bode well for either of them.
"Vincent, relax!" he said. "We'll be fine! Just stick close, alright?"
The lights pulsed faintly, not in rhythm with one another, but in a way that made Cal's thoughts stutter, like a skipped step on uneven ground. What had once seemed almost beautiful now carried a suffocating presence, their glow tinged with something sickly, something mournful.
The pressure behind his eyes began to increase even more, forcing him to close his eyes shut for a moment, then opening them again, expecting relief.
Instead of relief came a change in the trees beyond.
Their branches hung unnaturally low, sagging under a weight that didn't seem to exist there. Along the branches, were shapes that were disproportionate and out of place. They were dark, uneven silhouettes swaying gently despite the stillness of the air.
The sight came into view with a harrowing clarity. Cal's heart lurched upon his eyes landing on it.
Bodies.
They swayed from the branches like forgotten offerings. Their limbs were limp like lifeless dolls, with necks craned at impossible and painful angles. Some were little more than shadows with vague human outlines; others were disturbingly clear. Pale faces bloated and split, eyes clouded and half-lidded. Fingers blackened with rot twitched as though stirred by some lingering memory.
Cal staggered a step back, and as he did, the vision collapsed. The trees became normal once more. Bare, twisted, empty, and still.
His breath came shallow. He blinked hard, shaking his head.
That wasn't real, wasn't it? These lights... They're placing illusions on me! Was that what I saw? Something that came from them?
He scanned the branches again, slower this time, forcing himself to catalog what he saw. Bark. Moss. Dead leaves. No bodies.
Despite all of it, the vision had clung to his eyes and his memory. And before he could try to recover from it all, another wave rolled in, with the ground dropping out.
Cal's stomach lurched violently as the world tilted, his sense of balance tearing free from reality. He threw his weight forward instinctively, bracing for impact.
He struck nothing. His feet remained rooted in the ground, yet his body screamed otherwise. He felt as if he was falling down into a never-ending abyss that had no ground. The feeling was as if he was floating through the air with no resistance from anything at all. The night stretched and warped around him, the dots of light above smearing into elongated streaks of light as if the sky itself were falling with him.
Cal clenched his jaw and forced himself to breathe through it. He focused on the bite of cold air in his lungs, the rough texture of the ground beneath his boots, the solid weight of his sword hilt in his palm.
Slowly but surely, the sensation eased agonizingly. The sensation of falling forever had vanished. But the unease had remained.
Cal straightened his gait, trying to maintain his composure, despite feeling his heart hammer against his ribs. His gaze flicked back to the lights overhead. They were now drifting even closer. Or perhaps, they just felt like they closed the distance between them. Their glow pulsed faintly, and with each pulse, his thoughts seemed to slip out of alignment, like words spoken a fraction of a second too late.
Was that just an illusion? It felt so real!
Cal felt his stomach's queasiness, placing his hand over where he felt the discomfort. He wanted to drop to his knees and abandon any thought of defending himself, but the chill kept crawling down his spine.
The half-visions — the corpses, the falling — weren't just ordinary illusions that were meant to play tricks on his eyes. These invoked actual physical feelings that made him feel like he went through the most terrifying of experiences. They were distortions, fractures forced into his perception, warping the way his mind interpreted reality.
They weren't attacking his body. They were targeting the very way he viewed the world.
"Vincent," he said, voice strained. "Tell me what you're feeling."
Vincent didn't answer right away.
When Cal looked over, his chest tightened.
Vincent stood rigid, shoulders drawn tight as if bracing against an unseen wind. His eyes darted erratically, struggling to track something that wasn't there — or perhaps too many things at once. A faint sheen of sweat glistened on his brow despite the cold. He was so concerned about himself, he had forgotten Vincent could be subject to this as well.
"Ah..." Vincent gasped out, his voice shaky with pain and fear.
Cal moved closer without hesitation.
Vincent's hand twitched at his side, fingers curling and uncurling as though grasping for balance. His breathing was uneven now, shallow and quick.
"I... The lights," he started, eyes wide. "When I look at one, the others start moving. Or maybe I'm the one moving. I don't know anymore!"
Cal placed a firm hand on his shoulder.
The contact grounded him, at least. The sensation of falling flickered at the edge of his awareness but failed to take hold fully this time. He exhaled slowly through his nose.
"Can you hear me?" Cal asked, concerned etched into his voice. "Tell me that you can hear me."
Vincent nodded faintly, though his eyes remained unfocused. "It feels like I'm… slipping. Like if I stop thinking for even a moment, I'll fall apart."
That confirmed it. Cal felt the distortion too — but it washed over him like a tide breaking against stone, never quite dragging him under. Vincent, on the other hand, was being pulled deeper with every passing second.
I'm an Ecliptic... I might have some resistance to it! Vincent doesn't, so it's affecting him more!
Whatever the wisps were doing, Cal's nature gave him a resistance Vincent lacked. All of this meant that Vincent's vulnerability was in Cal's hands. And he'd take it as best he could.
The lights overhead began to wander even closer. They were close enough to see their glow, which no longer felt distant or abstract. It was evident that they were not content to watch from above. Their presence pressed against his senses like damp cloth over his face, heavy and suffocating. Wherever he looked, one seemed to linger a heartbeat longer than the rest, as if testing how near it could draw without being noticed.
Cal tried to focus on whatever could ground him in reality. His grip on his sword, the feel of the ground beneath his boots, and the cold air brushing against his skin. Falling to their allure was a fatal outcome for the both of them. And now that he knew of his resistance, another life was on Cal's shoulders.
What a pain...
"Stay behind me," he muttered to Vincent, his voice low and firm.
Vincent didn't object one bit. He could barely keep his feet on the ground as is. As he tried to stay still, one of them drifted too close. That was more than enough.
Steel cut through the night in a clean, instinctive arc. The blade passed through the wisp without resistance, yet the moment it did, the light shuddered violently. The glow fractured, flickering like a dying flame before collapsing inward. What remained withered rapidly, its form unraveling into thin, colorless smoke that drifted upward and vanished into the dark.
He didn't dare stop. Another one drifted closer, perhaps emboldened by the fallen light's earlier advancements, or maybe clueless about what had just happened. Cal stepped into the swing this time, cleaving through it in a horizontal slash. It met the same end: light dissolving, substance failing, its presence erased as though it had never truly existed.
More followed in succession. Two this time around, which Cal noticed. He pivoted, slashing and adjusting his stance with rough efficiency. Each strike disrupted the oppressive haze around his mind, if only briefly. The air seemed clearer where the wisps died, the pressure easing in shallow pulses.
The remaining lights recoiled. Not slowly or cautiously, but sharply. The retreat happened in unison, streaking upward and away with unnatural speed, retreating so abruptly it left the clearing feeling hollow. Their glow dimmed rapidly as they scattered, thinning until only distant pinpricks remained — and then even those were gone.
The silence that followed continued to ring in Cal's ears, forcefully reminding him that while he managed to fend off the danger, Vincent's susceptibility was a pressing matter.
"Vincent," he said, turning. "Are you still with me?"
Vincent leaned against a tree, chest rising and falling unevenly. His face was pale, eyes unfocused but present. He swallowed hard before nodding. Cal studied him for a moment longer, then finally allowed himself to exhale.
The wisps were gone.
But the way they had fled — too fast, too sudden — left a crawling unease behind. Whatever had driven them away hadn't felt like fear. Cal continued to stare at Vincent, worry and confusion warring in his expression.
"Sit down," Cal said quietly. "Vincent."
Vincent had been leaning against the tree more than standing upright. At Cal's words, the tension seemed to drain from him all at once. His knees buckled, and he slid down the trunk until he was seated in the dirt, head bowed, arms resting limply at his sides.
"I... yeah," he said unevenly. "That'd be... good."
Cal crouched beside him, watching closely. Vincent's face was pale, his skin drawn tight as if he'd been ill for days rather than minutes. His eyes fluttered, struggling to stay focused, and his breathing came in shallow pulls that hadn't yet found a steady rhythm.
I'll have to be more careful. If I do have a resistance, then it's on me to keep the both of us safe. He needs to get to Nareth safely with me anyways.
"Lie down," Cal said, more firmly this time. "Just for a bit."
Vincent hesitated, then obeyed, easing himself onto his back atop the cold earth and fallen leaves. He stared up at the dark canopy above, eyes unfocused.
"Lucky you," Vincent said, still panting from the exhaustion. "You don't seem so tired."
Cal blinked. "What?"
"You're not shaking," Vincent said weakly. "I feel like my head's been pulled apart and put back wrong. Like I'm still falling. But you're standing there like you just went for a good run."
Cal frowned slightly, glancing down at his own hands. They were steady. His heart still beat hard, but the disorientation had already begun to dull, receding like a tide.
"I'm not sure," Cal admitted. "But my theory is that it's because I'm an Ecliptic. Whatever those wisps were doing… it didn't affect me as much."
Vincent let out a breath that was half a laugh, half a wince. "How nice. You seem to be more than ready, huh?"
Cal shook his head. "We don't know that. I'm not ready in the least."
Vincent looked up at him, quirking an eyebrow slowly. "You keep saying that. How we shouldn't jump to conclusions. Yet here you are, having saved my life from things we didn't know existed."
Cal breathed deeply, the words not even sounding like a compliment. He could've just gone to Nareth alone. He didn't have to worry about Vincent if he hadn't come alone in the first place. But then again...
"It's what I have to do," Cal started quietly. "You're not in my way. Isn't this what we'd do regardless?"
Vincent's flicked to Cal's, their gazes holding and nothing passing between them but the silence that followed Cal's words. After that pause, Vincent nodded slowly. Cal managed something that somewhat resembled a smile.
"Rest," Cal said. "I'll keep watch."
Vincent nodded faintly and closed his eyes.
Cal stood and turned, finally allowing himself to take in their surroundings again — to reassert reality where moments ago it had been bent and fractured. That was when his stomach dropped.
The hollow.
What had once been a defensible pocket between the three trees was no longer intact. One of the trunks bore a long, fresh gouge where his blade had struck too wide. Another had been chipped near the base, bark split and scattered across the ground. Fallen branches lay snapped beneath their feet, and the undergrowth had been trampled flat.
He exhaled slowly, holding the bridge of his nose.
Damn it, I should've been more careful! I was so worried about Vincent, that I forgot about the hollow entirely! And now it's destroyed...
In the chaos, he'd forgotten the space. Forgotten positioning. Forgotten containment. The hollow had been compromised by his own hand. Inexperience in true combat was the reason behind all of this.
Before he could dwell on it further, a sound broke through the stillness. A dull, fibrous creak arose. It sounded like wood bending under a weight it had carried for far too long.
Cal froze as Vincent's eyes snapped open from the sound. His head turned to where he heard the noise from, with the sound coming in again, closer this time.
Ahead, partially obscured by shadow and bark, something stood embedded in the trunk of a massive tree. At first glance, it looked like a trick of the light — a jagged silhouette where branches crossed too cleanly.
Then it shifted and contorted. The shape was unmistakably humanoid. It resembled a knight-like figure found in a children's book, only it was much more grotesque and unnerving. Armor clung to its form, not worn but grown into place, plates fused with bark and root. A sword jutted from its grasp — or perhaps from its body — buried deep into the tree itself, metal and wood merged as one. Moss threaded through the seams of its armor, pale green veins crawling across rusted steel.
Cal didn't hesitate, immediately lifting his sword and stepping forward with a strike filled with all the strength he could gather.
The blade met the silhouette with a clean, practiced arc, passing through without resistance. There was no sound. No recoil. No reaction.
The knight-shaped figure slowly turned its head. Whatever lay beneath the helm did not glow. Did not move. Did not breathe.
Nothing. The attack meant absolutely nothing. For the first time since setting foot in the forest, since facing corrupted beasts and warped dead, Cal felt it.
Death had truly stared into his eyes.