Floor ???

Garden of Eternity

None had ever walked on the surface of the Garden of Eternity, a place so removed from all of reality that only a handful of beings knew that it even existed. Vast fields of grass grew freely with forests of obscure and unique trees a common sight no matter where one stood. The flowers that bloomed were unrecognizable, a mixture of beautiful and near perfect blooms combined with what could only be obvious mistakes of nature. Streams ran across the landscape in symmetrical patterns, with lakes that looked to have been placed strategically to create formations. The only light that illuminated the Garden of Eternity came from a singular sun in the sky, no stars or moons shared the heavens with the light purple orb that painted everything in a pastel hue.

Anyone would have viewed the Garden of Eternity as an unusual yet entertaining locale to visit. Those who had managed to fight their way through the labyrinth would have also viewed it as a haven, somewhere to hide away from the final floors of terror which only a god could hope to pass through. Yet for myself there was to be only a singular memory that mattered, one that would haunt me unto death and beyond.

A gentle smile was all I could give as I cradled the body of my beloved. The armored suit that I had worn was torn and battered, barely functional, yet all I could care about was the woman that I held. Her flawless face that had been crafted by some unknown being so far past, her smooth skin which refused to ever change to a different shade of color, even her numerous sets of wings that emerged from her back, everything about her was something I never wanted to forget in those moments.

"Promise me," she whispered with a shaking voice, even as she tried her best to reach up and touch my cheek with her left hand.

"Of course, you know I won't ever let you down," was all I could say as tears spilled forth and a tightening in my throat made every word a trial to speak. "I'll do anything you need Lute."

Luticia's eyes began to close as her head turned to the side. A slow stream of blood began to slip out from the corner of her mouth, one that worsened as she spoke again. "One story, please one more story."

So I told her a tale, the only one that I truly knew. I spoke of how we had met and how we had grown together over time. I spoke of our friends, some lost and others adrift within the labyrinth on their own personal quests. I recited even how she told me of the truth of her, and what would eventually come if I stayed on the path that I had chosen. I even let her know of the feelings which had stormed within when our dearest friend was taken, feelings which drove me to break a promise to her.

While she listened Lute remained as still as possible, all of her energy had been invested in staving off the inevitable. She smiled while she listened, her eyes filled with tears long before I even recounted the death of our best friend Pierre.

"Then I finally arrived here," I reminded her, though I did not go on from there. Instead it was all I could do to not stare at the sword that stuck out of her stomach at an awkward angle, one which had pierced through her heart from below.

"And you freed me," she said, a quiet murmur filled with gratitude. A few more words were spoken, words that were spoken in a tongue that I knew to be her own special language. With all the strength she had left she lifted up her face to mine and kissed me once, on the lips with the gentleness that had so captured my soul. A hint of warmth spread from her into my body, a charge of energy which felt like nothing I had ever felt before.

"Goodbye," she said, before her body slumped over and she went still in my arms.

With her death all I could hope to do was to sob and hold her tighter to my body. The tears flowed but the guilt of what I had been forced to do remained, the fact that she had wished for it in no way a comfort. How long I knelt there in my state of grief I would never be able to recall, although the sensation of coldness that grew was one which I only cared to notice when I began to regain control. An obvious pool of blood had spread out around Lute and myself, one which did not only contain the blood of the Goddess.

With a weakening of the arms I dropped her body to the ground, while my own body followed not long after as dizziness and fatigue hammered my injured body. Cuts, none of which were shallow, had been carved into me and a stump where my left foot had been marked the sacrifice I had given to win the fight. The damage that had been wrought was enough that when I tried to think on it there seemed to be no logical reason why I had lasted long enough to defeat my beloved.

A grunt of frustration was all I could manage when I tried to touch her face one final time, when I struggled with the weakness and realized never again would I do anything. My gaze rested on her face as it lay half-submerged in the pool of blood and crumpled grass, a punishment I had earned when I shoved the sword into her heart.

When the darkness swept over me there was only a momentary feeling of happiness, along with a strong regret. Cold and dead Lute would be left in the Garden, alone and forgotten by all without even an unmarked grave. To not even cover her with a cloth, to leave her fallen form bared to anyone who might some day happen along in the far flung future, it was enough to send a ripple of rage through my very soul.

"If only," was the final thought I had before the grasp of death gripped hold of me and claimed my soul. A dark veil settled over my vision while my body went limp alongside my dead wife.

☗ ☗ ☗ ☗ ☗

Or so one would think, as when next my eyes opened I realized that the world was not the same anymore. Above was a sun that had a strong drying sensation as though it wished to suck away all moisture from my body.

Yet as if to deny the concept of reality itself a warmth coated my body. The breeze that tickled at the ears told me that I was in a place entirely new, alongside the sensation of dry air that sucked away the moisture of my skin. My eyes opened and took in the view of a blue sky with a yellow orb above, a sun so bright and warm that it made the purple one of the Garden all the more unreal. Somewhere in the distance I could hear the sound of a bird as it cried out in a lonely voice. While I lay there on the ground with a turn of the head I could see to the left and right only a barren landscape devoid of significant life, inhospitable and disgustingly arid.

Confused all I could do was stand up, at which point it became obvious that my body had changed drastically. While the clothes were of a similar style that I favored in the past the rest of my body had lost most of the muscle mass which I had gained over the years of hard training. Somehow the scars that had accumulated over the decades of fighting through the labyrinth had been washed away, along with the wounds that Lute had torn into me during the fight. The green shirt and dark green pants I preferred in casual life had not a single mark of damage, and pristine black boots designed from some unknown type of leather protected my feet from the rocks.

Imagine perhaps if you had someone simply remove half of your body weight from one moment to the next and you might understand why every motion I made felt odd. The alien form that had been granted to me mysteriously proved difficult to even stand up straight, too much strength into my legs when I walked threatened to send me face first into the ground. It was a trial I had to endure for a few hours as I struggled to relearn the most basics of movements.

To compound onto the problem my eyesight and hearing had changed along with my weight. What had once been fuzzy, distant and small had transformed into an easily viewable object. The far off shadowed creatures that lurked scared and hidden in the desolate wasteland were not only audible with their far off growls but visible to the point that I could readily see the hostility on their faces. With a puff of breeze that cast some dust up the long white hair fell in front of my face, an aggravatingly long hairstyle which instantly annoyed me to the point that I thrust it back behind my pointed ear without a hint of hesitation.

"What is this?" I asked, my voice so significantly different from before that at first the belief others were nearby came to me. "Am I an elf?"

Without even a single shred of amusement I glared at the world that I had been thrust into, perhaps seeking someone to take my frustration out on. It was then that I saw the shadowed distant sight of buildings, the style of which were strikingly familiar. Combined with the landscape that I stood upon my confused mind managed to scrounge out the truth of where I was.

Grantis. The original city of the humans, the place of my birth and the beginning of my own crazed journey into the labyrinth. What I saw though was not the Grantis I had known, but a different one with easily three times the sprawl of buildings merely within my current vision. Most of the deeper buildings were more than twice the height that I could recall, and it was a shift in size that made me wonder how much time had passed since my fight with Lute.

I tugged at the simplistic grey cloak that adorned my backside with hope that the harshness of the sun could be warded off by that meager movement. Armed with only my bare hands and the knowledge I had accrued on my trip through the labyrinth I began to march toward Grantis. A singular nagging thought which began to worm its filthy way through my mind drove away any hesitation as I approached the outer slums.

Returned anew to the first floor, forced into a body I didn't know, time and gear and everything else ripped away. Yet there was one thing I had to do, one place that required my presence and one thought that pushed me onward.

"I'm coming, Lute."