Chapter Text
Something, no; everything was wrong.
The realization was both violent and disorienting in equal measure, slamming into you with the force of a freight train as your eyes met with a world of obsidian.
There was the uncomfortable rigidness of the flooring beneath you, unrefined and rough in texture, but sturdy all the same. It was probably cured wood once, long ago before time’s cruel persistence had worn it away to mere splinters. There was that closed window and the lone remote cast away beneath it’s moonlit majesty, the rustic bookshelf and the dilapidated room with chunks of plaster absent from the worn structure.
Something about all of this felt deathly familiar.
This was someplace you knew.
Here in this corpse of a house, you and Niko had first met.
The unease had clenched you with such ferocity that it could have ground your bones into a fine powder. The room felt chilling in all it’s malice, unforgiving against your skin as it wormed it’s way into your core.
Finally, as though a subconscious act of deliberate hesitancy, your eyes drew themselves over towards the farthest corner of the room. There lied Niko (it was them, oh God it was them,) swaddled peacefully between the blankets, as though entranced by a blissful reverie.
Perhaps they dreamt they were back home, of golden seas of wheat stalks and where the cumulus clouds dappled the dreamy skies that soared overhead. Of sunshine and summer picnics.
Your heart sunk further than the deepest sea.
No. This was wrong. This was all wrong.
Niko was supposed to be home, safe and with their mama, not caged beside you within this dome of glass.
You didn’t know whether to feel elated to see Niko again or grieve over the fact that you had miserably failed the only task you ever wanted to accomplish.
It occurs to you very suddenly that you had killed all of those people for nothing.
Filthy God. Worthless God.
You must have made the wrong choice- and by prioritizing the preservation of Niko’s innocence, you had netted yourself this disastrous outcome.
You thought you were only supposed to have one shot.
So why were you here again? Why was Niko still trapped here?
Urged forward by some manic trance, you scooped up the remote and held the device beneath the light, it’s pale artifice only now having become prevalent. There was no phosphor in this world that generated a light like that, so ethereal yet mechanized; and utterly soulless in color.
Oh, how you loathed it.
The code was undoubtedly different. There was definitely a two somewhere and the first number was a five- but suddenly the code had scrambled itself.
If you didn’t know any better, you just may have thought everything was generated all over again.
You do not bother to wake Niko, hurrying over to the computer monitor and jabbing the power button.
The screen flickered to life, familiar words assorted within the text box. The same old spiel. You didn’t have time for this.
You impatiently jammed the enter key repeatedly, scrolling through with the intent to just get it over with it. You’ve read all of this before. There was nothing new to be offered to you, then-
[...No. This does not feel right at all.]
Something about this was immeasurably infuriating to you.
[Have we already been through this-]
You don’t have the fortitude to allow it to finish. Your fingers typed indignantly across the keyboard, frantic and demanding. It must have done something. You just know it did.
“You lied to us.”
[I don’t understand.]
You glowered, fully aware that this false deity could never discern the sheer volume of hatred glinting in your eyes.
“Niko and I are still here. I sent them home just moments ago, but we’re here again. Tell me what you did.
NOW.”
[That should be impossible.]
It was almost cute; watching this malicious, deplorable excuse of a spirit play dumb with you. You should have known better than to think the Entity ever had a point with anything. As if it cared about Niko.
As if it cared about anything.
The way it spoke, the way it pulled the strings from the shadows teasing the corners of your eyes, from behind every monitor located in some dark recesses of the land. A snake, writhing beneath the flesh of the world and seeking its corrosion from the inside out. A serpent. A threat.
An inevitable promise.
Niko stirred. Their eyes flit open, gazing awkwardly into the ceiling as they nudged the sheets off and plopped themselves to the ground, eyes finally meeting yours. They paused, blinking once, and sluggishly approached.
“Niko,” you gasped perilously, refraining from stepping any closer as the child responds to the name with what you could only translate as either terror or fascination.
Why… why were they looking at you like that?
“Um… h-how do you know my name?” they spoke, admiring you with piercing yellow eyes and a benign gaze.
Your chest tightened and the world began to tremble dangerously beneath your feet, strangled by a numbing frigidness that crept down your spine. Nothing could have blunted the shock that came surging forth in waves, the words caught in your throat as you struggled to stay afloat.
You couldn’t find it in yourself to respond.
Instead, your legs gave way and refused to support the weight of your body as Niko only watched, uncomprehending.
“You don’t… remember me?” the words finally spilled forth, gears in your head turning like clockworks briefly before deciding to completely shut down on itself, as if the point in going any further than this was rendered obsolete.
The child pauses, perceivably confused. They nervously tug at their sleeves, feeling quite uneasy about your posture and reaction. “You look sort of familiar, actually,” they began, hope bursting through your heart before despair devoured it whole. They must have only been humoring you.
“What’s your name?”
You shook quietly, composing yourself for a little while longer before smiling over to Niko, hoping they would never take note of your half-hearted apathy. You quietly re-introduced yourself, and broke down into a sobbing heap onto the damaged mahogany floors.
Niko stroked your head comfortingly and murmured spirited words of encouragement, despite the perceptible fear that laced itself in their childish tone. How awkward it must have been for them to console a complete stranger, someone whom they have no inclination to even bother with.
This wasn’t your Niko. Not anymore.
This must have been some awful dream, a nightmare as you lay trapped between the limbo of the world’s extinction and the hub of where Niko had last been seen running with little hands outstretched towards the morning light-
...Perhaps you perished along with this world, and that Niko’s return to their town was a dying illusion simulated by the obstinacy of your burning desire.
Perhaps you were dead.
And this was hell.
Something out there must have been recording all of this, slipping your choices and mistakes into some secret archive hidden from you and Niko’s eyes.
The thought occurred to you during the meeting with Prophetbot, right as they referred to you by your correct name. It was funny, really- how the flow of events suggested that you’d been shoved back to square one and yet here, there was the implication of a higher understanding. This was the part where Prophetbot was supposed to slip up, and where you would very gently correct them in how your name was truly meant to be pronounced.
This time, they just knew. They knew .
[Are you alright, Divine One?]
The Prophet’s lone eye fixed itself on you with zealous adoration, Niko turning to you with concern. They made note of the way you’d been shambling about, feet aimlessly kicking up sand and bits of stardust that billowed by your feet.
“Of course,” you replied with plastic sincerity, a bit more sluggishly than you would have liked, “There’s just... a lot on my mind. We have quite the long journey ahead of us, don’t we, Niko?” you diverted the topic back over to the savior, who nodded diligently in response.
You came to terms with the prospect that if you pretended that nothing had ever happened, you’d feel better about all of this. Something to cushion the blow of losing Niko’s affection- to cope with the cruelty of being punted to the start with all memories intact.
You allowed for Niko to barrage Prophetbot with the usual questions, though no new information was offered that you hadn’t already known since the first time around. You were disappointed slightly, if not earnestly relieved that there were no unpleasant surprises or game-changers. You somewhat wanted them to say something, anything new- as reassurance that you had simply slipped up and needed to be railroaded back onto the correct path. That there really was a way out- a way down.
You’d rather know that you’d made a wrong move than retrace the steps towards ruin a second time.
“Thank you for your help,” you made it a point to offer your gratitude before parting ways with the robed prophet.
Poor thing, being stranded out here for this sole purpose.
Maybe you should have tried taming him, this time.
Enlightenment of her truth from the previous loop had made it quite difficult for you to look Silver in the eyes. What transpired between the creator and the robot was sickeningly unjust, but the situation and circumstance were far from your control.
It wasn’t as though Silver ever asked to be here. As far as she was concerned, it was only fair.
“ You speak differently than the other robots,” you tested, wondering if the android would turn out different responses if you chose to stray from the path of observance. You had failed to better know your own denizens, so why not start now? Most people would have killed for a second chance, so you deduced you may as well have made the most of it. Blind optimism did you well in the endeavor to mask the apprehension that squirmed beneath.
“Why is that?”
[I suppose that’s because I’m tame,] her answer was very automated as though she’d been anticipating the question. As if that, too, had been coded into her programming.
“How did that happen?” You prodded, arms behind your back. Niko’s ears twitch and the child stares up at you, wondering where exactly you were going with this. Your tone belied the prying intent, and you are unsure if Silver either failed to catch on or had lost the internal battle with her programming to decline elaborating.
[I was just built that way. I didn’t have much of a say.] She sounded hushed as she answered, as if deeply ashamed. As if she has had too much time to think and marinate within her own isolation.
You realize this is the first time you’ve bore witness to Silver expressing what you could distinctly identify as resentment, the distance between her and the redheaded scientist iron-clad and impermeable. Silver was an inscrutable character from afar, when anyone who approached was always kept an arm’s length away. She had fortified for herself an elaborate wall that none in existence could dare cross, all in order to shield others and herself from the immeasurable weight of the past that hung in the air behind her.
Silver was tame. She could think, she could feel- she was almost human.
Oh, God.
Silver was almost human.
And she was stranded here alone for who-knows-how-long, forced to contemplate and dwell on her solitude.
Her abandonment.
“Would you like for us to stay here a little longer with you?” you blurted, the emotional significance of it all seeping into your gut.
Silver’s eyes swiveled over to you, visibly flattered by the suggestion. She does not answer immediately, attempting to formulate the words.
[...I appreciate the offer, but I think your mission is more important. It’s better if you don’t wait too long. I don’t know how much longer things will last without the sun.]
You nodded slightly in comprehension and turned for the door, knowing fully well that she would likely follow you towards the mines if you tried for the camera lens. You turned again to face her, calling upon her again with the regality befitting of a God.
“Actually, I was thinking. You know the Barrens better than the two of us, so would you kindly come escort us for a little while?” The request was benign, though you had that personal leverage as God to will her into compliance.
You swore Silver looked almost relieved at the insistence, the coldness of her tone contradictory to the the raw desperation of her electric soul beneath.
[If … you really need me to, then I guess I don’t... really mind.]
“Stay away from it, Niko.”
Niko’s fingers ghosted over the computer keyboard before you had interrupted them, beckoning for them to return to your side.
“H-huh? Why?” they meowed, standing their ground. You missed when Niko used to trust you, when their faith in you was unwavering. They were like a lost puppy now, pawing at every object and brimming with an envious curiosity.
“We don’t need it’s help. I know what needs to be done.” you huffed with unintended impatience, the static of the Entity’s displeasure crackling in your ears. You wouldn’t comply this time. You refused.
“Are you sure?” they began tip-toeing behind you, casting the monitor a forlorn look as your footfalls echoed hollowly throughout the flooded passageways of block fragments and twisting ivy.
You didn’t bother to spare it a second glance. You could save Alula without it’s help.
The sun motif was eternally prevalent, despite it’s long period of absence. It was everywhere- sewn into clothing and etched into the walls, whispering, shouting- screaming from every angle in a ceaseless monotone. The insignia was burned into the back of your eyelids, even though you’ve spent so little in the second loop so far. They worshiped this thing that Niko held so lovingly in their hands, and all that filled your head was the shrill sound of it smashing to bits as you brushed it away with a single flick of the wrist.
It occurred to you that you are extremely unsure of just how much of this you could actually take.
You hoped for both Niko and yourself that you would not have to repeat this charade a third time.
You thought it was strange that a girl so fragile and small could hold such strength within herself. She must have been so powerful, before the sun’s death had robbed her of her longevity.
Maize lay crumpled in the same spot, rooted to the earth and exhausted from the pain of deterioration. The floral wreath adorning her golden curls must have once been flourishing, you marveled wistfully as you reached out and cupped one of the withering petals that crowned her. She doesn’t even so much as budge an inch at the action, as shocked as you may have been about her lax disposition.
Maize had resigned herself to this long ago. She was beyond resisting.
She was beyond hoping to delay the inevitable.
The spirit smiled weakly, looking very much as if it killed her to move any other muscle. A maternal warmth flowed from her lips as she spoke.
“S-Savior. And my Divinity, i-it’s really you,” she muttered with cracked lips, the encircling cage of vine rustling and shifting restlessly.
You presented to her the lightbulb without request, her frail fingers grasping towards the sun and it’s tender radiance. Maize gasps softly, awestruck and mesmerized. Your palms remained pressed atop the sun, unburdened by the heat. It could never burn you; no. It knew better than that.
“I’ll stay here with her,” you proposed, nudging it closer to Maize.
Niko is reluctant to go alone, and you can see the anxiety flicker in their eyes very briefly before they nodded solemnly, assuring to themself that there could never have been any flaws in the logic and orders of a God.
Niko’s blind servitude ached you so. They obeyed you not as a child would to a mother’s concern, but how a dog served it’s master. The comparison was profound and foreign, and it made you feel sick.
“My Divinity,” Maize coughed, veil of thorns curling and contracting within itself. You took one of her hands in yours, squeezing delicately and shielding her from the cold breeze that blew from just beyond the ruins.
“Your hands… they are very warm, too,” she twitched, shuddered; and toppled over. You caught her effortlessly and held her weightless form in your arms, the fragrance of a springtime meadow overflowing your senses.
You could only grin dolefully in response, squeezing her hand a little tighter as her end drew so close it was palpable.
“I’m not scared anymore,” she whispered, giggling softly when you held her closer, so close it was almost considered clutching, “-Thank you.”
Such a polite thing to utter as her last words.
It was easier to explain to Niko what had happened if the tears would not stop, so you made no attempt to dry your eyes as you keened over the golden seed she left behind.
The lamplighter was no genius. That sank in pretty damn quickly on the first loop, but you’d never really known just how deep down his trench of ignorance had traveled.
“Coffee grounds comes from cans, yes. Technically, coffee is traditionally grown in trees and harvested after months of growing, but I’d assume you guys have processing plants for that kind of thing now.”
You could practically hear his brain flat-lining at the explanation. Even Niko facepalmed at his near-comical reaction, and it was then that you accepted this to be one of his more charming qualities.
“Just… don’t worry about it. I know the security code, we just need to get the button working.”
“You used hella tape, too,” his eyes bulged at the magnet-cocoon you’d made with Niko, as you had proposed the idea after neglecting that particular step in the previous loop. Still, tacking on the magnets and struggling to get the sticky tape off your fingers was an amusing experience. It was moments like that with Niko that you cherished above all else, even if it was something as impossibly stupid as playing pretend arts-and-crafts and imitating the closeness that once existed in an unspoken time.
“What were you going to do if we didn’t find the code?” you leaned against the cool metal of the elevator walls, holding Niko’s hand in yours. You were grateful to at least be on good enough terms with Niko where physical affection was on the table, again. You missed this mock-sibling relationship that you and Niko had forged.
The lamplighter only scratched the back of his head, phosphor jars clinking against each other from the elevator’s rocking motions.
“Push in numbers ‘till one of ‘em worked. That or, maybe kick harder.”
“You’re back.”
Perched between the gnarled roots of a grand tree sat that fox, tail curled demurely around her thin body. Her russet fur shone softly beneath from the ethereal light that emanated from the phosphor overhead, regarding you warily from an ample distance as if gauging your intent.
While her onyx eyes were kind, her tone remained sullen.
“You can remember?”
The fox hesitated, her tail stiffening as she rose up off from her spot and dashed towards the corner of the crumbling room, aiming to retreat behind the tree.
“...It is not yet time.”
“Wait, please-” you entreated, vermilion leaves crunching softly as you staggered forward to your knees, Niko paddling over towards your side, and-
“I am deeply sorry,” the fox lamented, bowing her head low in respect. In the end, however, she does not even turn to face you.
“For everything.”
The end is coming, and you can feel it.
The entire slog through the tower and it’s woven chain of passageways had been less of a harrowing procedure as it had been the first time, in a rather cruel streak of familiarity that you hoped you would never have the misfortune of encountering again.
You and Niko stood together at the spire’s crown yet again, where the lightbulb’s socket sat patiently for it’s long-awaited reunion with the sun. Niko fluttered about the room and began to watch the world go from within their glass bastion, tapping against the panes as though a mile upwind and away from the world that clawed from below.
You couldn’t take your eyes off from the sun for a single second, now immune to it’s shine as though rejecting its embrace. That sun was Niko’s connection to this world- it was the thread that bound them to their destiny as the herald of light, as the savior.
They called you a God. They revered your charms and the limber way you moved- the fire in your steps and the stars in your eyes. They loved you with all their hearts and valued you for more than you would ever be worth- and you had cast them all into the flames.
Niko’s eyes were glittering, flecks of gold shimmering like ichor. They called out your name, and it was happening all over again.
The guilt of it all begins weighing down upon your shoulders and you cannot move, cannot speak when Niko grabs your hand again and you are taken back to the times when they would nuzzle up to you for warmth during their short naps, the way they’d bury their nose into your clothing as they’d tell you about their mama’s pancakes and the sound of the wheat stalks on a windy summer afternoon.
The two of you would pass each other what-if scenarios, of how fun it would be if just for a day, you could play with Niko and their friends, what a blast it’d have been if you took Niko to see the ocean for the first time, laughing amidst the twilight as the sun fell below the blue sea.
“What should I do?” they ask, and the answer was so obvious to you and yet the words could not shape themselves.
You dithered for a moment and knelt down to Niko’s level, tone of honeyed politeness decaying as you ultimately settled on telling Niko the truth.
It was as they said- the truth would set you free. Was that the moral of this whole experience? That breaking a child’s heart was necessary for the greater good of a world that wasn’t your own?
“So I won’t… go home, then?” they whispered brokenly, and it is just then that you realize how badly you wanted to take all of this back. To undo every little mistake and wrong move that cost you the outcome of granting Niko the happiness they deserved.
You didn’t want to do this.
But you had run out of options long ago.
...What good was this supposed to do? For what purpose did it serve to have to disclose Niko of their fate atop the tower, to subjugate them to your final decree?
There were no sequence of words you could choreograph perfectly that would ever lessen the pain of what you would tell Niko. There was no way to sugarcoat the truth, to waltz around the topic as you had the cycle before. The way they looked at you in that moment, the bountiful warmth in their eyes that had now waned like the moon, had made you sicker than you had ever felt before.
“Okay,” their voice cracked, and the sound of the sun clicking into it’s slot is so strangely satisfying to the ears that you despised yourself for even remotely finding solace in the sun’s return.
You didn’t even really save any of them. You found a temporary solution to a long-term problem that was still slavering at their heels. They were all going to die like dogs.
And now, thanks to you, so was Niko.
The nausea struck again in full-force and sent you reeling. Niko padded softly beside you and fit themselves snugly in your arms, sniffing into your clothes as you ran your fingers through their hair the color of autumn amaranth vines.
“I’ll always be with you,” you promised, voice laden with determination. “For as long as I remain here, I’ll never leave your side.”
“Never?” they sniveled, trying to mop themselves up with a sleeve before forsaking the act completely and retreating back into your awaited embrace.
“Never,” you murmured back.
The irony of this moment; this oath, was lost on Niko completely. But you remembered. And you were doomed to remember forevermore.
“I would never go someplace so far as to where you could never reach me.”
You remained for just a moment longer, hushing Niko and drying them of their tears before you pressed your lips gently against their forehead.
...
..
.
Please, oh please...
...Just let this all end.